


photos on the mantelpiece

by justkatherinetheokay



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: ...Technically, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Dogs, Kid Fic, M/M, Slow Burn, Suburbia, basically a rom com, laconic lawyer meets excitable civics teacher, no one dies, very slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:36:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6048364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justkatherinetheokay/pseuds/justkatherinetheokay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Recently-widowed single father Aaron Burr is just trying to keep himself and little Theo stable as they cope with their loss and start fresh in a suburb away from the rush of the city.</p><p>Their new next door neighbor—bitter, sarcastic, a hot mess, owner of basically the best dog in the world—is an unexpected complication.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. my dog speaks more eloquently

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seabury, Aaron thinks, is actually a pretty good name for a dog. Classy. Not at all what he’d expect from the kind of guy who would be standing on his porch in his underwear at quarter to five in the morning swearing at said dog loudly enough to wake up his neighbors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I gave up on my self-imposed thing where I was going to finish the drunk texting lams au before I posted anything new, because I'm tired of not having part of this published, because I'm way more excited about this fic and all it will (hopefully) be.
> 
> Anyway, for someone who hates rom-coms as much as I do, I sure do seem to love outlining them. Here's the first chapter of this one.

August 28

  


“SEABURY! _SEABURY!_ GET THE FUCK IN HERE, ASSHOLE!” 

Aaron sits up in bed, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyelids until he sees stars, not wanting to look at the clock, to know what time it is. 

He looks at the clock. It’s 4:36 AM. 

It’s not as if Aaron had expected to sleep well the first night in a new house, but god knows he certainly hadn’t anticipated that the _neighbors_ would have anything to do with it. Not in the suburbs. There’s a _reason_ he decided to move them out of the city—a number of reasons, actually, but the quieter lifestyle was definitely one. Here, he had assumed, any disturbances to his first full night’s rest would be due only to the discomfort of an unfamiliar room—and the fact that even after six months he’s still getting used to sleeping alone, but that’s a thing for grief support group meetings, not the ass-crack of dawn—no, it’s still pretty much the middle of the night, actually, when— 

“SEABURY! COME ON! IT’S FUCKING COLD AND I’M NOT WEARING SHOES!” 

What exactly _is_ going on out there? Some jackass is screaming curses at someone named Seabury, from the sound of it about ten feet away from Aaron’s window? 

At four-thirty in the morning. What the fuck, suburbs. 

He jerks the shades up a little more violently than is probably necessary and squints out at the house next door, following the sound of the voice. It’s abrasive, nasal but a little hoarse, frustrated, and above all, it seems, profane, and apparently it belongs to the man who’s standing on the wooden porch outside the side door of the house next door, arms crossed over his chest, shuffling a little from foot to foot. He's not wearing shoes (or indeed much else: just a t-shirt and boxers), and he seems to be directing his early-morning (late-night?) ire toward… a dog? 

Seabury, Aaron thinks, is actually a pretty good name for a dog. Classy. Not at all what he’d expect from the kind of guy who would be standing on his porch in his underwear at quarter to five in the morning swearing at said dog loudly enough to wake up his neighbors. 

“DON’T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE!” he yells as Aaron watches him, bemused and still not entirely convinced he’s not dreaming. Regardless, the guy, he decides, doesn’t look angry so much as just frustrated. The dog ignores him, continuing to sniff at the grass along their side of the chain-link fence that separates the narrow side yards. That would be why. “SEABURY!” This time it comes out more like a whine than a shout. Still loud enough to hear through a window two stories up, though. “YOU FUCKER!” 

He continues, still without lowering his volume, but Aaron isn’t listening anymore: he’s shoving his feet into his slippers, pulling on his robe, and tiptoeing across the hall to peek into Theo’s room and make sure she’s still asleep. 

She doesn’t appear to have stirred. Good. He can stop short of actually murdering the guy. Aaron shuts her door carefully and marches downstairs as quietly as possible. He doesn’t turn the kitchen light on, not least because he doesn’t want to be fucking blinded, but he does switch on the porch light so the guy can see him. He steps outside and blinks. 

Aaron’s vociferous neighbor has now made his way across the narrow strip of lawn that separates his house from the fence to stand near the dog at the property line, barefoot on the damp, dewy grass. He’s still shuffling his feet, and still cursing, but now it’s a somewhat quieter (anyone else’s normal speaking volume) mantra of “fuck it’s cold, fuck it’s cold, fuck you, fuck it’s cold, fucking dog, fuck you, fuck it’s cold.” 

“Excuse me,” Aaron calls, not actually yelling—more like a very loud stage-whisper, now that the guy is standing no more than eight feet away. Said guy looks up in surprise. “Do you _know_ what time it is?” 

“Nighttime,” his neighbor replies. This close, he’s kind of scruffy-looking. Aaron is a little jarred to realize his black hair hangs down to his shoulders. Meanwhile, any shadow of a theory Aaron may have might have been entertaining that the guy might be somehow inebriated vanishes when their eyes meet: his neighbor’s are bright, fully alert. Maybe a little _too_ alert—Aaron has to dart his gaze away first, the other guy’s is so intense, even at four-thirty in the morning. Then, having fully registered Aaron’s presence, the guy frowns. “Hey, didn’t you just move in?” 

“Yes,” says Aaron, snapping back to reality. “Yesterday. Do you _mind?”_

“Huh?” 

“It’s the middle of the night,” Aaron says slowly, enunciating each word very precisely so as to ensure his meaning gets through, “and you picked right now to be outside screaming at your dog. With some pretty vulgar language, I might add.” 

“Okay, first of all,” says the guy after barely a second’s pause, “I didn’t _choose_ this time for my dog to have to take a shit, _he_ did, and he’s getting on in years, so he’s not totally trustworthy anymore, plus he’s going a little deaf lately, and frankly he’s had kind of a rough life, so you’ll pardon me for empathizing. And I’d hardly call it _screaming._ Maybe yelling, or talking loudly—” 

“None of that is an excuse for swearing as much as you have,” Aaron interrupts. “I’d rather not have my daughter exposed to that kind of language, and I’d _really_ rather not be woken up by it.” The guy finally looks like maybe he’s starting to get it. 

“Aw, shit,” he says, “did I wake you up? Man, I’m sorry.” Aaron stares. 

“It’s four-thirty in the morning,” he says. 

“Is it?” says his neighbor. 

“Yes.” 

“Oh. Huh. I didn’t realize it had gotten so late.” Apparently he’s not going to say anything more than that. Aaron grinds his teeth. The murderous impulse is creeping up again. 

_“Obviously_ you woke me up.” 

“And again, I’m sorry about that,” says the guy, who in the absence of a name Aaron’s brain wants to just label _his asshole neighbor._ “I honestly didn’t know it was that late. Or early, I guess, from your perspective. Besides, you could’ve been awake before.” 

“…I’m an adult.” 

“So am I.” His asshole neighbor shrugs. Aaron bites back the retort on the tip of his tongue, which is, of course, _are you sure_. Instead he asks, 

“Could you just tell me whether to expect any more of the very loud swearing?” 

“Well, I think we’re about done for tonight, aren’t we, Seabury?” his asshole neighbor replies, though to all appearances he’s addressing his dog, crouching down to scratch behind his ears. 

The dog looks up at him adoringly. The dog is clearly an idiot. 

“As for tomorrow, though, or, really, any point in the future,” the guy adds, looking up at Aaron through the fence, “no promises.” He smirks at him, stands, and starts back towards his porch with the dog following close on his heels. 

“What the hell is _wrong_ with you?” Aaron hisses across their yards. His asshole neighbor laughs, shortly and without mirth. 

“Oh, man,” he says without looking back, voice heavy with irony, “where to fucking start?” 

“What the fuck,” Aaron mutters to himself, and is about to go inside when he realizes—well, actually, he could probably go on quite gladly thinking of the guy as just _his asshole neighbor_ for the rest of his life. But it wouldn’t be polite, Theodosia’s ghost says firmly in the back of his mind. She, as always, wins out. “Hey, I don’t know your name.” 

“Huh?” The guy glances back. 

“What’s your name, man?” 

“Why, do you need to know who to address your strongly-worded letter to?” Aaron blinks. 

“My what now?” His asshole neighbor snorts. 

“Never mind.” He opens the door behind him to let the dog in, but lingers outside long enough to say, “Alexander Hamilton. And who are you?” The name is weirdly familiar, but Aaron can’t immediately place it, and he’s not willing to put in the effort to really think about it at this ungodly hour. 

“Aaron Burr,” says Aaron shortly. 

“Well, Aaron Burr,” Alexander Hamilton replies, “—sir—” did he really say that just for the _rhyme?_ “—it’s been an absolute pleasure.” He sounds like he means the exact opposite. Aaron would, too. Then the door shuts behind his asshole neighbor (just because he knows the guy’s name now doesn’t change what he is), and he realizes he’s standing on his porch at five in the morning glaring at the side of a house in his pajamas. 

He still has another couple of hours before normal human beings wake up, so once Aaron goes back upstairs he proceeds to shut the shades tight against the impending sunrise, hide his face in his pillow, and fall back asleep. 

He wakes up again around seven, not due to any alarm or sunlight through the window—he made well and sure the shades wouldn’t let it in—but because a dog is barking somewhere nearby. It’s louder than it should be, because the only dog in their building lives two floors down. This one sounds close enough to be in his backyard. 

That’s a weird thought, until he remembers he’s in the new house, not the apartment in the city, because they moved out to a different, smaller city where backyards actually exist. Hell, their existence here is part of _why_ they moved. However, last Aaron knew he doesn’t have a dog, so for a few seconds he’s very confused before he realizes that _that_ whole thing with the asshole neighbor and his dog actually happened and wasn’t just a weird, annoying dream. 

Shit. _That’s_ going to be unfortunate. Worse yet, there’s probably nothing Aaron can do about it. 

Now irrevocably awake, he resigns himself to it and pushes himself out of bed, into the shower, and from there into jeans and a t-shirt. It’s Friday, but not a work day, not yet; he doesn’t start his new job until the first, which is Tuesday, leaving him the whole weekend to finish the work of moving in. Theo doesn’t seem to be awake, but that’s okay; she’s still young enough that unpacking is considerably easier _without_ her underfoot. 

And there's a lot of unpacking to do: all they've actually brought in so far (aside from all the furniture, which they're going to need more of to fill all the rooms in this house) are a few groceries, the sheets for their beds, enough clothes to get them through the next couple of days, and the contents of Aaron's briefcase and Theo's little backpack. At least the rest of the stuff has already been unloaded, so he doesn't have to do that—just bring it in from the garage. 

The bare fluorescent tubes on the garage ceiling take a few seconds to stutter on. He surveys the assortment of packing-taped cardboard boxes arrayed on the cement floor. It’s a lot less stuff than most people would probably have, he knows, since they’re moving from a two-bedroom apartment to a two-story, three-bedroom house, but it’s still daunting. 

Aaron has never actually lived in a house with a normal garage, but somehow over the course of his three or so decades of cognizant life it's gotten into his head that garages are supposed to be comfortably cool, even in summer. His first is already out to prove him wrong: the August heat seems to have baked this one from the outside in. It feels like standing in an oven. Aaron manages to haul in a half-dozen of the twenty-five or so boxes before he has to give up and go get himself some ice water. 

Except that there is not, of course, ice, because the refrigerator hasn't been programmed to produce it yet, so Aaron settles for cold tap water, and of course he has to go pull another box from the stifling garage, one labeled _fragile_ ,to find a glass to put it in. 

Once that's all settled and squared away, he watches through the window above the sink as a group of kids, maybe ten or eleven years old, race up the sidewalk on bicycles. They're all in swimsuits. He knows there's a YMCA somewhere around here, but he's not sure where yet; he should investigate, maybe get Theo signed up for swim lessons. 

Right now he really ought to go see if Theo's awake yet—it's almost 9 AM, around the time school will be starting for her in just another week and a half, so she _should_ be up. Thankfully, when he knocks at her bedroom door she calls, 

"Come in, Daddy!" Aaron opens the door enough to stick his head through. His daughter is still in pajamas and mostly under the covers, sitting up in bed with a book open in her lap. "Good morning!" she says cheerfully, gracing him with the familiar bright smile that's been enchanting him daily for the past eight years. 

"Morning." Aaron goes over to smooth her hair back and kiss her forehead, then sits down on the end of her bed. "What are you reading?" Theo doesn't answer verbally but simply holds up the book so he can see the cover. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. "I thought that one scared you?" She and her mother got through the first book about six months ago, but Theo quit the second halfway through when, without Mommy there to read it to her, it started giving her nightmares. 

"Yeah." Theo shrugs. "So did moving, but then moving wasn't actually that scary, so I thought maybe this wouldn't be either." 

"And was it?" Aaron asks. Theo makes a face and nods. 

"It's still scary." She closes it and holds it out to him, and once he's placed it back on her bookshelf she crawls out from under the covers for a hug. When Aaron tries to let go again, she holds on tighter, snuggling against his side. 

"Whoa," says Aaron, joking, "I didn't realize it was _that_ scary." Theo doesn't answer, and it occurs to him that maybe that's not what the hug is about, so he squeezes her a little tighter and presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Did you sleep okay?" he whispers close to her ear, and she nods, pressing her face into his chest. 

"Yeah," says Theo, small voice muffled by his shirt. 

"That's good." 

"Did you sleep okay, Daddy?" she asks politely, drawing back enough to look up at him. The sound of his asshole neighbor yelling curses at his dog echoes through Aaron's brain, reverberating off the inside of his skull. He manages to suppress a snort. 

"Okay enough," he says. "Do you like your new room?" Theo snuggles back against him, small face serious as she considers the question. 

"Yes," she says tentatively. “None of my stuff is here yet, but it's bigger than at home.” 

“Well, this _is_ home now,” Aaron points out, slowly, carefully considering what else he should say to that. “Remember? It's where we're going to live for—well, for the foreseeable future. I've got a new job, and you're going to go to a new school—” Theo turns her head to hide her face in his shirt again, and he pauses. "Theo? Is the new school scary, too?" 

Theo shrugs. Up until now Aaron had been starting to think he was more nervous about his daughter going to a new school than she is, so it's almost a relief to find that's not the case, that maybe it's actually that she's just as good as her father at keeping a stiff upper lip. 

"Well, that's not for a couple weeks yet," he concludes, rubbing a gentle hand between his daughter's small shoulders. "You've got time to acclimate." 

"What's acclimate mean?" he hears Theo mumble, and chuckles. 

“Getting used to things. New room, new house, new neighborhood.” He gives her one last squeeze, then moves to stand. She looks reluctant to let go of him, but does. “Hey, how about having some new breakfast in the new kitchen?” Rather than laughing at that as had been his intent to provoke, Theo's mouth purses in a frown. 

“Does it have to be _new_ breakfast?” she asks. “’Cause I just want cheerios.” Aaron laughs. 

“Sure. Why don't you get dressed, and I'll go make you your cereal?” 

“Okay!” She hops down from her bed and heads for her dresser, and Aaron shuts the door and goes back downstairs to search through the garage for the box with the bowls and plates in it. 

They sit at the kitchen table to eat in a companionable silence. It's a dynamic that might seem strange to some, for a parent and child, but it works well for them. Theodosia was always the talker in the family, so without her sitting opposite Aaron there's no one to make sure the conversation carries on, and in the past four months he and Theo have fallen into this pattern instead. He figures it's enough that Theodosia managed to get Theo to stop bringing books to the table—this way, if they wanted to talk, they could. They just never seem to. Burrs in general tend not to be particularly talkative people. 

Aaron finishes his toast. Theo is only halfway through her bowl of cheerios, not yet in need of his immediate attention, so he checks his phone for the first time this morning. The notifications are sparse, limited to a few work-related emails and a text from his sister to make sure they're settling in all right. 

He knows Sally's still worried about him—she probably will be for a while—and Theo, of course. She's been a lifesaver for the past six months, watching Theo when he couldn't, making sure Aaron remembers to pay all the bills on time and Theo's hair gets brushed in the mornings and they both stayed fed and hydrated and living in some semblance of normalcy even as the world fell apart around them, and he knows he'll never be able to thank her enough. 

(And she’s still not through, either—she’s coming out Monday night to watch Theo for the single week between when Aaron starts work and Theo starts school. As a kid Aaron always kind of thought his big sister was Wonder Woman, but it’s not until now, as an adult, that he’s realized what a superhero she really is.) 

For now he reassures her that they're just fine, presently eating breakfast and then back to unpacking. As usual, he briefly considers adding a smiley face to the end, but as usual he decides that she's probably grown accustomed enough to his manner of texting that to start adding emoticons now would just make her even more worried about him than she already is. 

Theo takes her now-empty bowl and stands on her toes to set it in the sink. Aaron goes to rinse it. 

"What do you want to do today?" he asks her. "I could probably use your help unpacking." It's actually no more true than it was before she got up, but it's a white lie, and anyway only half—he's sure she'll want to unpack the boxes for her own room herself. 

"Hmm." Theo considers it. Aaron always loves the look she gets when she's thinking, the seriousness of her expression so incongruous with her eight-year-old face. "Can I help later? I want to go outside." 

"Sure," says Aaron, internally relieved. "It's a nice day out. You can come in and find me if you need anything, all right? And don't leave the yard." Theo gives him a look, as if to say, _why would I possibly want to do that_ , before she says, 

"Okay, Daddy!" and turns to run out the kitchen door. 

Aaron drags the upstairs boxes up the stairs, then leaves them be to finish unpacking the kitchen. They don't have enough stuff to fill all the drawers and cabinets—the kitchen here is at least 50% bigger than the one back in the apartment. This, he thinks, is already becoming a running theme. As if the apartment, half the size of the new house, hadn't felt empty enough when they left it. 

By the time he's starting to think about lunch he's checked on Theo twice—she’s still outside, having come in for a stack of books to take back out with her so she can read lying in the grass, a small pleasure she's never before had much opportunity to enjoy in her young life—and worked his way through getting the contents of the bathroom (just enough for the upstairs bathroom, in this house) and his desk drawers back into place. Aside from his wardrobe, which wasn't transported in boxes so much as in suitcases and garment bags, pretty much all the rest is books. In truth those are the only material areas where Aaron has ever regularly spent more than was perhaps wise: clothes and books, things that last, that can bring joy more than just once. 

(Theodosia was into that whole _does it bring you joy_ thing for a while last year, when she was still healthy enough to focus on things like decluttering, and the mantra may not have sunk in as completely for Aaron but it's a concept he can't quite shake.) 

The boxes of books are numerous, and _heavy_ , so of course he's left them for last. Theo will probably want to help with those, since Aaron mixed their books in the boxes as he packed them to begin with, and besides, the older she gets, the more the lines between their books—no, just _his_ books, now—and her books will blur. But they're all far too heavy for her to even be much help carrying them, so really what he should do is bring them all inside and _then_ go get her. There's his course of action. He's about to start in on that when, instead, someone outside starts yelling. 

Again. 

Because, unfortunately, an extra four hours has done nothing more to change an annoying reality into an annoying dream than two hours' sleep could earlier. 

"SEABURY—!" Aaron waits, mood plummeting, but to his surprise his asshole neighbor stops with the dog's name. _Maybe he actually looked up and realized it was daytime,_ Aaron thinks nastily, and goes to investigate. 

When he opens the door to the backyard, Theo’s book has been set aside, laid open on top of the stack in the grass, and she is crouched right up next to the chain-length fence as the dog pants at her from the other side, tail wagging excitedly, ignoring his owner in favor of Aaron’s kid. Aaron’s asshole neighbor is standing on his own porch, watching bemusedly. 

“Theo,” Aaron calls, “be careful.” From what he can see she hasn’t stuck her fingers through the fence to pet it yet, but with kids, even one as smart as his, one can never know what might happen when a less-predictable variable like a dog comes into the equation. Especially a dog this large—it would look menacing, Aaron thinks, except that it’s also the kind of dog that can look like it’s grinning, as it does now. It’s not a _real_ smile, of course, because it’s a dog, but it’s a little endearing nonetheless. 

“She’s fine,” his asshole neighbor says, starting down into the yard toward the dog. Aaron mirrors him, going to stand beside Theo. He doesn’t realize until it’s too late how close that brings him to his asshole neighbor— _Alexander Hamilton,_ he remembers, as his brain finally fully catches up with the fact that he _hadn’t_ dreamed that interaction. “Pit mixes have a bad rep, but he’s a sweetheart, wouldn’t hurt a fly. Would you, Seabury?” his asshole neighbor adds, patting the dog, who continues to ignore him. He sighs. “Yeah, okay.” 

“Who are you?” Theo asks, looking up to stare their asshole neighbor in the eye with all the ingenuous eight-year-old self-possession she ever has, that couldn’t make Aaron prouder. Still— 

“Theo,” he says, “there’s a politer way to ask that question.” 

“You know, I’m not sure there actually is,” says his asshole neighbor, “so it’s cool.” He crouches down next to his dog to be on Theo’s level; _now_ the dog notices his presence, turning to snuffle around his owner’s face for a moment before licking his bearded chin. “Gross,” he tells the dog. Theo giggles. “I’m Alex,” the guy adds, turning to her. “I live next door. This is Seabury. He also lives next door. What’s your name?” 

“Theo!” she announces proudly. “That’s my dad.” She points up at Aaron. His asshole neighbor looks up at him and waves, still grinning. 

“Hi, Theo’s dad,” he says. “Nice to meet you.” This close up, Aaron thinks, he looks exhausted; the guy had been up until at least 5 AM, he supposes, and wonders if he’s slept since then. His eyes are bright, but in a way that doesn’t suggest _rested_ so much as _caffeinated._ Still, he’s a little less scruffy—he’s put on jeans and a sweatshirt with a slightly faded print of that one painting of Obama, he’s clean-shaven except for the goatee, and his hair, pulled back into a ponytail, looks wet under the sunlight, like he’s showered. 

Despite the dark circles, in the light of day, with a genuine smile on his face, _he’s actually kind of attractive,_ says Aaron’s brain, a thought he immediately banishes back to whatever hellish corner of his subconscious it emerged from. 

“Aaron,” he says shortly. “We’ve met.” 

“We keep meeting. Still Alex.” His asshole neighbor stands again and offers his hand across the fence. Aaron shakes it shortly and firmly; his neighbor’s grip is more casual, and his palm is a little damp. It takes a concerted effort for Aaron not to wipe his hand on his jeans when he pulls it back. That would be rude. 

“Daaaaad,” says Theo, drawing it out and his attention back to her, “Can I meet Seabury?” She’s stood up, and is tugging at the hem of his shirt. 

“Haven’t you already met Seabury?” Aaron gestures across the fence. “He’s right there.” 

“No, for _real,”_ says Theo, like her father is being purposefully slow. “The fence is in the way. Can he come in our yard?” 

“I don’t think so,” says Aaron, who really doesn’t want a dog tearing up his nice, spacious backyard before he has a chance to enjoy it. 

“Then can I go in his yard?” Theo, never one to be easily discouraged, looks up at him with huge eyes. Aaron sighs. 

“You’ll have to ask Mr. Hamilton,” he says, indicating his asshole neighbor, who’s been standing there watching the whole exchange with a look of faint amusement. Theo turns back to him. 

“May I please come over and meet your dog, Mr. Hamilton?” she asks very seriously. 

“Uh,” says their neighbor. “You don’t have to call me Mr. Hamilton yet—” _Yet?_ “—I’m just Alex, and yeah, sure, if it’s okay with your dad.” Theo whips back around to give Aaron the puppy eyes again. 

“Fine,” says Aaron, giving up. “Let’s go meet the dog.” 

“Yes!” Theo does an adorable little jump and races off toward the front gate. Aaron follows quickly, keeping pace at a calmer walk with his longer legs. When they get out to the sidewalk and around the length of fence that continues along the property line all the way to the edge of the front yard, their neighbor is already standing with his own gate open, waiting. Aaron would have expected him to be holding the dog back with his free hand, from what he’s seen of dogs in the city, but not so: the dog stands calmly beside its master without restraint, still panting in a way that makes it look like it’s grinning. Theo sets off toward the open gate still at a run, but Aaron sets a firm hand on her shoulder to hold her back. 

“Careful,” he says. “Be nice. You don’t want to scare him.” 

“She’s fine,” his asshole neighbor says again, holding the gate open as they come through. “Really, he’s very gentle.” Aaron will believe that once he’s been given a little more evidence than just the word of his asshole neighbor, but he’s not going to say that out loud. 

“Hi, Seabury!” Theo crouches in front of the dog, offering her hand flat for it to sniff. “I’m Theo. You’re really cute.” The dog wags its tail, and Theo takes that as permission to pet its head. The floppy ears stay put. Good. 

“He knows gimme five,” their asshole neighbor— _Alex,_ Aaron tells himself firmly, he should really stop thinking of him as just _their asshole neighbor_ if Theo is apparently going to be friends with his dog—tells her, “if you want to try that.” 

“Gimme five!” Theo holds out her hand. The dog sets his paw in it, and she laughs with delight. The dog leans forward, and Aaron tenses, but all he does is lick her face, making her laugh harder. “He’s so sweet!” 

“Yeah, he takes after his father,” says Alex dryly, and it sounds like more to himself than either of them. Based on their two meetings so far, this guy is the opposite of what Aaron would call _sweet_ , but that’s another thing he doesn’t say out loud, because it wouldn’t be polite. He suspects that list is going to lengthen substantially in the coming months. Meanwhile, Alex yawns, mutters, “shit,” runs a hand over his hair, and then adds, louder, “uh—hey, I’m sorry about this morning.” It takes Aaron a moment to realize that _is_ directed at him. 

“What?” 

“You heard me.” 

“No, I didn’t.” 

“Well, I’m not saying it again. Apologizing too much is bad for my skin.” Aaron manages to keep from rolling his eyes, but the effort hurts his head. 

“Okay,” he says. “Fine.” He’s met with quiet for only a second or two before Alex opens his mouth again. 

“I just, I realize now that I may not have made the best first impression, so—I just wanted you to know, you know, that’s not usually me. I swear I’m not that much of a mess usually. I’m not, you know, that guy.” He’s standing awkwardly, like he’s not sure what to do with his hands and has settled for shoving them into the pockets of his sweatshirt, and when he glances at Aaron it’s sidelong, with hooded eyes and a rueful grin. 

_“That guy_ who screams curses at his dog at four in the morning?” says Aaron dryly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Because so far you’re the only _that guy_ I’ve ever met.” Though in the light of day the guy’s been nothing but nice to the dog, who, as it turns out, _is_ a pretty nice dog. 

“It was four- _thirty,”_ Alex says, with a definite note of petulance in his voice. Aaron raises his eyebrows. “…Not that that’s really _better,_ but, you know.” 

Aaron says nothing. Alex winces and pulls his hands back out of his pockets to run them over his hair again, not that anything needs to be smoothed—it’s still wet. Aaron waits. 

“Um. Anyway, the point is, that wasn’t—you know, that wasn’t me. Well, it was me, but it wasn’t _me._ I wasn’t—yesterday was—I’m usually more caffeinated than that, you know? Like now, I’ve had my coffee now.” There’s that suspicion confirmed. This man _is_ a mess. But at least after that he’s silent. 

Theo has moved on to getting Seabury to roll over so she can rub his stomach. The dog’s tongue lolls out of his mouth happily. It’s a very blissful kind of scene, so pleasant to watch that Aaron can almost forget he’s standing a few feet from his asshole neighbor. Until, 

“So, where’d you guys move from?” 

“Brooklyn,” says Aaron. 

“Oh, nice. I used to live in Manhattan.” He looks at Aaron as if he expects further questioning on the subject. Aaron just nods his acknowledgement. “Uh… how old is your daughter?” Alex asks, apparently determined to make small talk. 

“Eight,” Aaron says shortly. 

“Cool,” says Alex, and before Aaron can ask why, adds, “I won’t be seeing her for another nine years or so, then.” That must explain the _yet,_ though Aaron isn’t sure how. 

“Seeing her?” 

“In class,” Alex elaborates. “I teach at the high school. Civics and AP government.” That explains the sweatshirt. Aaron’s immediate reaction is something along the lines of _who the_ fuck _thought it was a good idea to let this man teach their children,_ but _of course_ he doesn’t say that. The silence while he tries to think of something else to say lasts too long, apparently, because Alex snorts and adds, “don’t worry, at least half of them are adults by the time they get to me. I figure by that point I can’t fuck them up any more than their parents already will have.” 

“Oh, uh,” says Aaron, “I—I didn’t—” _Did I say that out loud?_ he thinks, mind slipping towards blind panic, because _what if he did—_

“I’ve heard it before.” Alex doesn’t seem offended, though, just amused. “Don’t sweat it. So, Mr. Burr, what do you do?” 

“Law,” says Aaron, because if Alex is going to go back to his attempts at small talk, he’s going to return to his own one-word answers. To his surprise, Alex’s eyes light up with interest. 

“Oh, really?” he says. “Where?” 

“Montgomery  & Associates,” Aaron volunteers hesitantly. “For the last five years.” Alex nods; apparently he does know the name. They weren’t universally-known, so Aaron never assumes, but nor does he question it, especially since Alex offers no explanation for the spark of recognition. 

“What about up here?” he asks. “You can’t be planning to make _that_ commute.” 

“No, of course not,” Aaron replies. “I’m starting with Jefferson  & Madison on Tuesday.” It’ll be Jefferson, Madison, & Burr once he does, actually, but he doesn’t feel the need to brag. Nor is he certain how to interpret his asshole neighbor’s sudden reaction to that—he makes a strangled sort of noise, presses his lips into a thin line, and looks away. “Problem?” 

“No, no. They’re fine lawyers,” Alex says, “so I’ve heard. Best in town. I’ve just, uh. I’ve had Tom Jefferson’s daughter in class. His kids’re good kids,” he adds quickly, “good students, it’s the _dad_ that—you know, he’s just… a character.” That’s cryptic, and he says nothing more on the subject. Aaron decides he’ll just wait and judge for himself. 

“We should head back to our house,” he says after a few more minutes of watching Theo, who’s still thoroughly entranced by the dog. “It’s about time for lunch, and we’ve still got a lot of boxes to unpack.” 

“Of course,” said Alex, and to Aaron’s surprise he places two fingers to his mouth and whistles. The dog comes running over to sit at his master’s feet, looking up at him expectantly. Theo looks in their direction too, startled. 

“It’s time to go,” Aaron calls. She makes a face. “Aren’t you getting hungry? It’s lunchtime.” 

“…Yeah.” She skips back over to them. Aaron takes her small hand. 

“Will you say thank you to Mr. Hamilton for letting you play with his dog?” he asks. 

“Seriously, everyone can just call me Alex,” says Alex again. 

“Thank you, Mr. Alex!” Theo tells him. 

“That works too.” He smiles down at her. “You’re certainly welcome to come back and see him any time.” God, Aaron hopes she doesn’t take that offer too much to heart, even knowing there’s pretty much no way in hell any eight-year-old wouldn’t. “It was very nice to meet you, Ms. Theo. Mr. Burr, a pleasure.” Theo smiles brightly, Aaron politely, and they leave their asshole neighbor’s yard behind, pausing in their own only so that Theo can grab her stack of books. 

“I like him!” says Theo once they’re back inside their own house. She sets her books on the table. 

“He seems like a very nice dog,” says Aaron. Theo laughs. 

“I meant _Alex,_ Daddy!” 

“Yeah, I know.” Aaron shakes his head. “He’s all right,” he allows; he was better than decent to his kid, anyway, which Aaron has to admit does win the guy _some_ points. Doesn’t outweigh literally everything else, though. “What do you want for lunch?” Theo shrugs. “We have peanut butter and jam.” 

“Okay.” Theo sits down in a kitchen chair and pulls a book from the top of the stack to read while he makes her sandwich. She’s still so even-tempered, Aaron thinks as he assembles the required components, so easy to please and to care for, despite the year they’ve had. 

“What are you reading?” he asks once he’s made the sandwich and is setting the plate in front of her. Wordlessly she holds up the book so he can see the cover— _Little Women_ —rather than just answer before she takes a huge bite of her sandwich. Aaron snorts. “I approve.” Theo gives a little shrug as if to say, _good for you,_ and continues to read as she eats. That’s all right; once again, they probably wouldn’t talk through the meal anyway, so she might as well. 

Once they’ve finished with lunch, Theo runs off to her room to start unpacking more of her things. Aaron goes to rinse the plates, gazing absentmindedly out the window over the sink as he does. He could get used to this, he thinks, setting aside the fact that he’ll kind of have to. It’s calming, watching the scene outside play out while the running water drowns everything out into a pleasant hum. 

Well, it’s calming until his brain fully processes what he’s watching—his asshole neighbor is standing in his back yard, tossing around a Frisbee for his dog. God, Aaron hopes that thing doesn’t accidentally go flying over the fence and into _his_ yard. 

No sooner has he thought it than it does exactly that. Aaron can’t make out exactly what Alex yells, but he’s almost positive it’s vulgar. Then he jogs past the window frame, only to reappear seconds later on Aaron’s side of the fence. 

_I should put a padlock on the gate,_ Aaron thinks darkly. 

Alex bends to pick up the Frisbee, then looks up, as if he’s only just realized where he is, to smile brightly at Aaron through the window and give a sarcastic little wave before he jogs back over to his own yard. It’s not until Alex and his dog have gone back inside that Aaron realizes the water’s been running over the same (now _very_ clean) plate for at least the past minute. He curses under his breath and turns the faucet off. 

Fuck this. He has books to unpack. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my hope that, with this fic, I'll be able to force myself to actually stick to some kind of posting schedule. (If you've followed my fics before, you're probably aware that punctuality isn't really something I excel at when it comes to making sure things update.) Right now I'm (loosely) aiming for once a week, probably on Sunday evenings. I'll try to make note of weeks when I have commitments (like, you know, being in school full-time) that might push things back a week. 
> 
> ...speaking of which, tomorrow begins my last week before spring break, so I'm going to play the "I have three separate papers to write this week that are all due in quick succession of which I have started approximately none" card and say the second chapter probably won't be up until the Sunday _after_ next.
> 
> Also! I love kudos and especially comments. Plus I'm on tumblr and you can come scream with me @tobyzieglerintraining.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. what to say to you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just like that, life in the suburbs begins to settle into a routine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha ha ha yeah so it turns out I 100% lied about that regular schedule thing sorry school caught up with me
> 
> But it's break now! I'm home! I have time! So now I'm going to get around to actually writing this. Thanks for hanging in there, if you've hung in there, and if you're new, welcome to whatever this is.
> 
> In which the pacing speeds up substantially and a lot of new characters are introduced:

  


August 31

  


Sally arrives at six o’clock on the dot, exactly when she said she would. Burrs are nearly always punctual. Theo shrieks her name and runs into her arms immediately, and Aaron’s sister just laughs. 

“You missed me _that_ much, pumpkin?” she says, kissing Theo’s hair. “You just saw me last week!” 

“A week is too long!” Theo insists. Aaron steps around her to offer his sister a slightly awkward side-hug. She kisses his cheek. 

“Good to see you too, little guy.” Aaron, who has been taller than Sally since he was thirteen, just rolls his eyes. “You got everything unpacked?” she asks, looking around. 

“More or less,” says Aaron. “We made sure the guest bedroom’s all set up for you.” 

“I helped make your bed!” Theo adds proudly. Sally offers an outstretched palm for a high-five, which Theo returns with enthusiasm. 

“Thanks!” Sally gives Aaron another squeeze before she lets him go. He doesn’t fight it—he may be over thirty years old, but she’s still his big sister, the big sister who helped raise him after their parents died. 

“Have you eaten?” he asks, walking her into the kitchen. “We’ve just finished dinner, but I can reheat some pasta.” 

“I’m good,” Sally replies, “I grabbed some dinner on the way up.” 

“Something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Water? Lemonade?” 

“I’m fine, thanks.” 

“Okay. Well, if you do decide you need anything, or if you can’t find something, just—” 

“Aaron.” Sally laughs. “If this kitchen is anything like your last, I’m sure everything’s exactly where I’d expect it to be, and organized half to death. I think I can manage.” Aaron nods, a touch sheepishly. 

“Okay.” Sally looks at him, shaking her head fondly, and holds out her arms for a real hug, which Aaron accepts with only a slight façade of begrudging. 

“Are you sleeping any better?” she asks him quietly once she lets him go. Aaron knows what she means, but he finds himself struggling not to laugh as his mind immediately leaps to his asshole neighbor— _Alex,_ his name is Alex, and Aaron has to stop being so rude to him, even if it’s all within the privacy of his own mind. 

In the asshole’s defense, there’ve been no further early-morning shouting incidents, but Aaron’s too wary a person to just assume that will last forever. It’s only been four days. 

“I’ve started to,” he says out loud. “The new location’s helping, I think.” What’s been most startling, actually, has nothing to do with his sleep. It’s not having the moments of stabbing realization anymore, or at least not for the past four days in a row. 

But Theodosia never lived here, so he doubts he’s ever going to have the same problems he’d have back in the apartment, when he’d turn around and expect her to be coming out of the kitchen or the bathroom or sitting on the couch or lying in bed beside him only to have it hit him again that she’s gone, her body is so many ashes, and she’ll never smile at him from that particular bit of space again. That’s not going to happen here. She never was in this part of space. 

“Good!” Sally smiles encouragingly. Before she can question him any further (as he knows she’s about to), Theo finds them, running up behind Aaron to tug at his sleeve. 

“Daddy,” she says, “can I have chocolate milk?” 

“Theo, you just had dinner.” 

“Yeah, but we didn’t have dessert yet,” she points out, “and chocolate milk is basically dessert, so I could have that instead of ice cream. Please?” Aaron sighs. 

“Fine.” Theo does a little hop of joy. Sally bursts out laughing. 

“Very succinct,” she says; “she really is yours.” Aaron shoots her a look—he doesn’t want any part of the can of worms that is Mommy and Daddy’s relationship before Theo’s birth (and how what remains of Daddy’s family felt about it) opened within earshot of his daughter until she’s quite a bit older than eight—but she doesn’t seem to see it, looking down to add to Theo, “you old enough to take the LSAT yet?” 

“What’s the el-sat?” Theo asks Aaron. 

“It’s a test people take before they go to law school,” he tells her. 

“Am I going to go to law school?” 

“If you want to.” Aaron opens the refrigerator to get out the milk and chocolate syrup. “You sure you don’t want anything?” he asks Sally. 

“Positive,” she says firmly, in the tone that truly indicates that will be that, and he’d better drop it. “So you’re doing better?” 

“I am. We are.” Today his hands don’t shake as he pours milk into a glass (just a small one; he doesn’t want Theo hitting the wall on a sugar high). “We’re doing just fine, right, Theo?” 

“Yep!” 

“So you like your new house?” Sally asks Theo. 

“Yeah! The yard is really cool,” Theo pronounces, bouncing on her toes before Sally, who smiles encouragingly and glances at Aaron before she asks, 

“Would you like to show me?” Aaron has no issue with that, it being light out still, so he waves them off. 

“Yeah!” Theo grabs her hand and pulls her to the side door. “There’s so much grass, Aunt Sally, and there’s sprinklers that water it every morning—and there’s a _dog_ next door, his name is Seabury—” then they’re outside, and her voice fades away. 

Aaron is doing better, he thinks. He’s doing okay. Has managed to keep himself together, through everything. He’s not sure he could have without Theo as a motivator, a reason to keep going instead of just curling up and sinking into nonbeing alongside Theodosia. 

He’s neglected the chocolate milk, he realizes. He goes to add the syrup, but now his hand shakes too much to squeeze the bottle. _Get a grip, Burr,_ he thinks to himself, and chuckling at his own joke relaxes him enough that he manages to pour into the glass what is perhaps a more liberal amount of chocolate syrup than he originally intended. 

Theo is all the reason he needs to keep functioning. After all—Aaron lost his wife, yes, the love of his life, but Theo lost her mother. And Aaron lost both of his own parents at an even younger age, and there’s no way in hell he’s letting the same thing happen to his daughter. Ever. 

Voices filter in from the backyard—they must be headed in. Sally’s gentle timbre provides a soft background to Theo’s excitement, still talking animatedly about everything. Aaron hears her exclaim something, and then, suddenly, their voices are joined by another, one with a grating edge that immediately stiffens his spine. Returning the milk and syrup to the fridge on the way, he goes to look out the screen door. 

Sally is standing near the front of the yard chatting with Alexander Hamilton across the fence while Theo lavishes affection on Seabury through it. Alex looks up, sees Aaron watching, and waves. His hair is down tonight. Aaron grinds his teeth into a semblance of a smile and politely waves back before he turns and marches away from the screen. 

Theo and Sally come in a few minutes later, the former pretty amped up from the dog encounter, though her excitement is quickly transferred to her chocolate milk. Sally sits down at the kitchen table, where Aaron has opened the newspaper mainly for the sake of having something else to focus on. He’s still getting used to not being able to consider the Times a local paper. The one here is considerably less elegantly-formatted. And well-edited. 

“Your neighbor seems pretty great,” says Sally. Aaron opens his mouth, then shuts it again, trying to decide what he can say that will be both polite and true. 

“He’s… something,” he manages. Sally laughs. 

“Lord, Aaron, you should see your face.” She shakes her head. “He does seem like a nice guy, I mean it. Also like exactly the kind of person you’d automatically hate.” 

“Daddy doesn’t hate Mr. Alex!” Theo pipes up from where she’s climbed into the third chair. “He just thinks he should talk less.” Aaron snorts. 

“Well, I’m glad Theo’s made a friend already,” Sally says, since he’s said nothing. “Even if that friend is a dog.” 

“She’ll make plenty of human friends at school, I’m sure,” says Aaron. 

“Of course!” Sally agrees. “Are you excited for school, Theo?” Theo looks down into her cup; Aaron can tell she’s kicking nervously at her chair legs under the table. “Third grade’s a good year,” Sally tells her. Theo nods. “Do you remember third grade, Aaron?” Third grade was the grade Aaron skipped, and for a moment he’s surprised Sally doesn’t remember that. 

“Not really,” he says, deciding that to point it out would only make this conversation unnecessarily complicated. 

“Isn’t third grade when Mrs. Shippen sent home a note about your bad behavior?” Sally prods. 

“No, Mrs. Shippen was second grade,” Aaron says, but Sally’s gotten Theo to look up, her eyes (his eyes) curious. 

_“Daddy_ had bad behavior?” she asks, incredulous. 

“Oh, very bad behavior.” Sally laughs. “What was it you did again, Aaron? Wasting glue?” One look at Theo’s face makes clear that he’s not getting away from the table without telling this story now. 

“Yeah.” Aaron sighs. “We had Elmer’s glue, you know, the white stuff, and my friend Will and I realized if we smeared it on our skin it would dry into a kind of plastic film. So we poured glue all over our hands.” 

“Ew!” Theo scrunches up her face, but she giggles. 

“Then it took forever to get it off, and our teacher got mad.” 

“Do you think I could do that with glitter glue?” Theo asks, looking dangerously pensive all of a sudden. 

“No,” says Aaron, and doesn’t specify whether that’s in response to the _I_ or the _could_ of the sentence. “You know what, Theo, it’s about time you were getting ready for bed.” She’s finished her chocolate milk, he sees; “Why don’t you go get your pajamas on and your teeth brushed? I bet Aunt Sally will read you a book if you ask nicely.” Theo looks to Sally, who nods confirmation, and hops up from the table to set her glass by the sink before she marches out of the kitchen and up the stairs. 

“So,” says Sally after a few moments of blissful quiet broken only by cicadas somewhere outside the screen door. “Seems like you’ve settled in all right.” Aaron nods. “And you have all your meetings set up?” she asks. 

“I _am_ a functional adult, you know,” Aaron says dryly. Sally gives him a look. “More functional than I was four months ago,” he protests. 

“Yeah, that’s true.” She pats his shoulder, not a completely condescending gesture. “You’re doing better. I see that.” Aaron looks down. 

“New support group is Thursday evening, my new therapist is during my lunch hour on Friday, Theo’s new therapist is Friday afternoon after school,” he recites, and “pizza night is Saturday, church is Sunday,” he adds, looking up again, because it will make Sally smile. It does, but, 

“Who are the therapists?” she asks. 

“Dr. Wheatley for Theo,” Aaron says, as if she hadn’t helped him find her online two months ago. “Dr. Pendleton for me.” 

“Let me know how he works out,” says Sally. It’s an instruction, not a question. Aaron would tell her he’s thirty-one years old and she doesn’t have to mother him, but he knows from experience that’s pointless. 

“Sure,” he says. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. I’m not particular.” Sally cocks an eyebrow, and he knows she has any number of things to say about that, but she won’t say them. He counts his blessings where he can get them. 

“Well, it sounds like you’ve found all the structures for your support network,” she says instead. “Good to know that includes a pizza place.” 

“Haven’t actually found that one yet,” he admits. His sister leans forward to smack him on the arm. 

“Well, damn, Aaron, get on it, what’s stopping you!” It’s nice, Aaron thinks, that they’re laughing, happy, when Theo comes back in, the weight of their conversation just seconds earlier lifted. 

Sally puts her to bed, which is helpful, since Aaron still has yet to get his things in order to take to work tomorrow. Even now it takes him a while to bring himself to actually sort through the mess of office supplies he pulled out of a packing box yesterday and put a few pens and legal pads, along with his laptop, into the slightly battered briefcase Theodosia gave him back when he graduated from law school. 

On a whim, he grabs the framed photos of both Theodosias he’d had sitting on his desk back at Montgomery and tucks them into an inner pocket before he shuts the case. They can go on his desk at the new office, first thing. Might make it feel a little more normal on a first day he’s sure will be hectic, since as a rule Aaron tends to anticipate the worst and hope to be pleasantly surprised. 

He is, in general, pleasantly surprised by Jefferson  & Madison. The bearer of the first name on the door turns out to be a jovial if a little exuberant man with a very distinctive head of hair. Begrudgingly, Aaron admits to himself that he can see how even someone as little qualified to judge anyone else’s behavior as Alexander Hamilton, of all people, might consider Thomas Jefferson “a character.” 

Meanwhile, James Madison he’s already met; he was the one who interviewed Aaron a month ago. A fellow Princeton man. They bonded over it then, and Madison brings it up again now, so more and more Aaron thinks it’s a big part of the reason his name is getting painted on the door here as they speak. He’s fine with that, grateful for it, even. Whatever works to get him where he needs to be. 

Nothing about Madison’s reserved demeanor (a sharp contrast to his law partner’s, Aaron now finds) seems to have changed. Now he’s the one to point Aaron toward the requisite tours and HR processes, guiding him through his first day on the job after Jefferson announces in a Southern drawl, 

“I’m gonna bow out for the boring part, if y’all don’t mind, let Jemmy here handle all that; see you when we get to the real work, Burr.” Jefferson does occasionally verge on inconsiderate, Aaron thinks, in how he expresses himself. He and Alexander Hamilton have that in common. 

Madison walks him through the motions of getting his photo taken for an access badge, learning his way around, sitting down with HR to get through some basic orientation and paperwork, most of which seems to take place online now. 

This first day of work, Aaron thinks as a girl from IT walks him through accessing the client database, is a lot more high-tech in general than the last one he had to go through; then again, the last time he had a first day of a new job to get through was, Jesus, over six years ago. Or, looking at it another way, _only_ six years ago. Times have changed quickly. 

Jefferson joins them again around noon, when Madison offers to buy Aaron lunch, to insist they try this new place he heard about that’s just a couple minutes away. It’s definitely been a while since Aaron last saw a grown man eat macaroni and cheese and call it a meal. Whenever it was, he’s pretty sure he was still in college. 

_A character, indeed,_ Aaron thinks—not that he minds, particularly—and tries not to grind his teeth about thinking it, hating that he’s agreeing with his asshole neighbor at all. 

Jefferson wins him back a little when, on their return to the office, he pops into Aaron’s to see how he’s settling in and, spotting the pictures, immediately asks how old Theo is. 

“Eight,” Aaron tells him. “About to start third grade.” 

“Aw, that’s a great age,” says Jefferson. “Enjoy it, man, it doesn’t last long.” 

“No kidding,” says Aaron. “I swear sometimes I still look at her and expect to see a baby.” Jefferson groans good-naturedly. 

“It gets worse,” he says; “she’ll be starting high school and you’ll still feel that way, believe me.” 

“Believe you what?” says Madison, glancing in. 

“Oh, you don’t want in on this chat,” says Jefferson, waving him off. “We’re talking kids.” 

“Ah.” Madison nods shortly, and continues toward wherever he was headed when they sidetracked him. 

“He doesn’t like kids,” Jefferson tells Aaron, as if in an aside. “As a general rule.” 

“They’re sticky, screaming hotbeds of germs,” Madison calls from the hallway. Aaron doesn’t even wonder how he heard; Jefferson’s voice is the kind that carries. 

Another thing he and Alex have in common. Aaron feels like he should start keeping a list, if only because he’s pretty sure pointing out the similarities to his asshole neighbor would earn him what has the potential to be a deeply amusing rant. 

Or deeply irritating. Probably the latter. Best not to bother. 

“You’re fine with my kids!” Jefferson shoots back. Madison actually comes back at that to stand in the doorway and give his law partner a pointed look. 

“One of _your_ kids,” he says dryly, “is less than a month away from being an adult.” 

“Well, goddamn, Jem, you don’t have to _remind_ me!” Jefferson yells as Madison walks away again. Aaron chuckles to himself. “Yeah, fine, new guy, take _his_ side,” says Jefferson, but it sounds good-natured, mostly. “Say, Burr, who’s watching your daughter?” 

“Huh?” Aaron says, startled by the sudden change of subject. 

“You know, while you’re at work.” 

“My sister,” Aaron tells him. “She’s staying with us until Theo starts school, helping us get settled.” 

“You’ll still need a sitter once school starts, won’t you?” says Jefferson. 

“I guess so,” says Aaron—god, he knew he was forgetting something. Everything seemed to be falling into place too perfectly. How could he miss _this,_ though? 

“Well, hey—” Jefferson claps him on the shoulder. “I’m sure either one of my daughters would be glad to help you out, make some spare change.” The momentary panic subsides a little. Aaron nods. 

“Thanks,” he says. “Thanks—thanks a lot.” 

“I’ll get you in touch with Martha, okay?” says Jefferson. “My oldest, she’s a senior. I bet she’ll be game.” 

“O—okay. Thanks.” 

“No problem!” Jefferson hops up from where he’s perched himself on Aaron’s desk and strolls out of his office. Well, says the cynical part of Aaron’s brain (which is most of it), there it is: five hours in, and he’s already in Jefferson’s debt. Whatever that means. 

He’ll be glad to have the help, though. He can’t believe he didn’t think of it before. Sally probably could have helped him figure it out—they still have a week—but a part of him that doesn’t want to be a burden (or be treated like a kid) any more than he’s already been is glad she won’t have to. 

The day calms down a little once his new law partners seem to reach the mutual unspoken conclusion that Aaron now knows his way around enough to be more or less self-sufficient in acquainting himself with what remains of his new surroundings. The rest of the afternoon passes in relative peace. He’s grateful. 

Eventually five o’clock hits; Aaron waits for the other two to leave before heading for his own car. He watches Madison drive off in a sensible-looking silver sedan, followed closely by Jefferson peeling out of the parking lot in a bright red—well, really the best term Aaron can think of to describe that vehicle is _midlife crisis car._ He wonders what provoked _that_ for all of the thirty seconds it takes him to get into his own car. 

It’s an older model by now, but in fine condition aside from not having been driven much in almost a decade, a consequence of living in the city. It’s comforting, though. This is the car Aaron drove to the hospital with Theodosia in labor beside him a little over eight years ago, and the car they brought Theo home in a few days later. 

Home is a different place now. Aaron heads there. They have dinner, he chats with Sally, they put Theo to bed, and Aaron’s asleep almost before he hits his own pillow, exhausted. Too few hours later he gets up, dressed, and back into the car to drive to the office. 

He does it all again. 

Just like that, life in the suburbs begins to settle into a routine. Theo starts school; Sally goes with them to drop her off on her first day in Mr. Hale’s cheerful-looking third grade classroom, then heads back to Connecticut, where her own family awaits her. 

Aaron does get in contact with Martha Jefferson, who greatly resembles her father in looks but hardly at all in personality, at least at first—she strikes him as a considerate, well-adjusted young woman. Theo seems to like her well enough, so they arrange for Martha to pick her up from school each day and drive her back to the house, where she’ll watch her for two hours every day until Aaron gets home around quarter after five. 

So the routine is set. Aaron likes having routines; he’s the rare person for whom sticking to a schedule can actually be more relaxing than having free time. Theodosia used to tease him about it, back in the confused year after law school when he didn’t have either school or work to keep him structured. Watching Theo was a happy distraction, and studying for the bar gave him some sense of forward momentum, but the lack of direction, of a set plan for the future, made him anxious. Now, years later, finally settling into a routine still does wonders to put Aaron at ease, at least as much as he can be now that Theodosia isn’t here. 

“Hey, Mr. Burr,” Martha immediately says when he walks in the door three days into this routine. “I didn’t realize you lived next door to _Mr. Hamilton.”_

“Oh—yeah,” says Aaron, who hasn’t even had a chance to put down his briefcase. Theo ran at him the instant he got through the door and hasn’t let go yet. “Did you run into him?” 

“Yeah. Theo likes to play with his dog?” says Martha uncertainly. Aaron nods. “Is that okay?” 

“The dog’s fine,” says Aaron. “As long as it’s all right with Hamilton. Theo, hon, I’m happy to see you too, but you’ve got to let go of me.” She does so reluctantly. “That’s right,” he adds to Martha, “when I told him where I was working he said he’d had you in class before.” Martha nods. 

“I had him last year. I took gov a year early,” she adds, as if to explain—that must be a senior class normally, or something. Civics was when Aaron took it over a decade ago. 

“Is he a good teacher?” he asks, finally setting his briefcase on the kitchen table. 

“He’s…” Martha gets the look of someone searching for something polite to say, and Aaron bites back a laugh—he knows the feeling. “He’s a very _enthusiastic_ teacher,” is the description she finally settles on. Aaron can see it. “He’s polarizing, I guess is the word for it. Most kids either love him or hate him.” 

“From the sound of it, you lean more towards the latter end?” Aaron hazards a guess. Martha shrugs. 

“Yeah,” she says. “I guess. I’ve had worse teachers—at least he’s effective, I mean, he knows his stuff—I just think his teaching is unethical, I guess. He’s biased.” 

“Oh?” 

“When he teaches about government and the economy, um, his own beliefs tend to come through a lot.” 

“I see,” says Aaron, who’s gotten the impression over the last two weeks that Martha’s father is a touch more conservative than he’d have expected for this area—maybe not socially, or at least he hasn’t said anything to indicate it yet, but on economic policy, definitely. He wonders whether she shares her father’s views, and if so how they contrast with Hamilton’s. 

“He can be hard on kids who disagree with him,” Martha tells him. “Not that his grading is biased, I just don’t think a teacher should get in political arguments with students. It’s not appropriate.” 

“No,” Aaron agrees, “no, I wouldn’t think so.” 

“Really I think the reason _most_ kids hate him is that he never gives the same test twice,” Martha adds. “Makes it so they can’t cheat. _I_ don’t mind that part.” In her tone Aaron catches a hint of a smugness with which he’s rapidly becoming familiar; she learned _that_ from her father, he thinks. Jefferson’s braggadocio is a foreign concept to Aaron, and is taking some getting used to. Taught from a young age that pride was a mortal sin, he’s always tried to temper his own overachieving nature with an outward projection of humility. 

Sometimes he has a feeling that presenting himself to the world with more visible confidence might have gotten him further at certain points in his life. He’s done well enough for himself, certainly, but there was a particular failed job interview just out of law school that’s always going to gnaw at him. 

He doesn’t actually see his asshole neighbor much at all over the next few weeks, aside from passing glimpses of Alex out walking early in the morning—after a few weeks Aaron realizes he must walk to work—or throwing a ball for his dog, who it turns out can still lunge after a tennis ball with all the energy of a puppy when provoked to it. 

However, he finds himself learning quite a lot about Alex from Martha, who knows him as Mr. Hamilton, and who seems to enjoy telling Aaron about school—what the teachers are like, which ones are likely to be around when Theo gets there, how classes are going, where she’s applying to college—when he gets home. 

Aaron lets her; it’s nice to see a teenager excited about education, and he hopes in that way she can be a good role model for Theo. His daughter’s a smart kid, and as she approaches adolescence Aaron knows how important it is for her to see older black girls succeeding academically. 

And privately, guiltily, he also kind of likes hearing her stories. Maybe even especially the ones about Alex. Not that he _cares;_ of course not. She’s just a very good storyteller, if a touch dramatic, and makes the mundane details of Alexander Hamilton’s professional (which is in some cases, Aaron thinks, distinctly _un_ professional) life fun to listen to. 

From Martha he learns that Alex doesn’t have a wife or kids (though that much Aaron had surmised already, having, well, met the guy); that he’s been teaching at the high school for just three years; and that he runs into trouble with the administration occasionally, which with what else she’s said and Aaron’s own impressions really doesn’t surprise him at all. 

She also tells him, more interestingly, that in that time he’s become the faculty advisor for the resurgent GSA, which had fallen apart after Mr. Von Steuben retired in ’05, and that this coupled with the first thing has led to great speculation among the students as to certain details of Mr. Hamilton’s personal life. Charlie Adams, the principal’s son, is apparently convinced that Alex is gay, and quite possibly having an affair with Mr. Pickering in the English department. 

Alex, Martha says, ignores it for the most part, with the occasional wink or joke at his own expense to amuse the students. She doubts it’s true, since at least two of her friends have seen Hamilton outside of school on what were pretty clearly dates with women before. 

Aaron knows perfectly well that dating women doesn’t mean his asshole neighbor isn’t attracted to men, though he doesn’t bother correcting her; he doesn’t care what gossip high school kids come up with about their teachers. He definitely doesn’t have to _tell_ himself not to care in this particular case. He just _doesn’t_ care. 

Of it all, the one thing Aaron really takes away as negative (aside from Hamilton’s letting his political views slip out in a classroom setting) is that in addition to his possible-if-highly-improbable torrid love affair with a colleague and occasional run-ins with the administration, Alex has already become infamous at the high school for making at least one student per year (so far) cry in his class. It’s always been someone who most of the students agree deserves it; still, it tends to land Alex in hot water not just with Principal Adams but with parents. 

Justly so, thinks Aaron, who is, after all, a parent himself; good teachers shouldn’t make their students cry. Not before college, anyway. 

Martha’s own father, he learns, dislikes Alex even more than his daughter does; apparently Jefferson thinks, and often loudly announces, that he’s a terrible influence on the students. Martha quickly swears it’s only about the various flaws in his teaching style and completely unrelated to the GSA thing, but Aaron still files that away as a warning to be careful what he reveals about himself to Jefferson. 

Not that he wouldn’t have anyway; on every level of his life, he’s always careful about what he reveals to anyone. 

Now that they’re settled, September flies by. Theo zips through multiplication tables, does some kind of science project with autumn leaves, and reads a number of books that, Aaron thinks, if stacked up, would reach almost her own height. He thinks he’s never seen her more excited by anything than by getting her very own library card. 

Himself, he slowly gets better at helping with her hair. Aaron knows he should know more about how to do his daughter’s hair—he has a _sister_ —but somewhere along the line he missed these particular life lessons. He’s always valued efficiency and simplicity; there’s a reason he keeps his own head shaved. Less comfortably, he knows he missed this stuff (a lot of stuff) despite growing up with Sally in part because, in high school, he made sure to mold himself to fit in primarily with the honor roll kids, and again in college with the very top of the pre-law track, and of the honor roll kids and the Princeton pre-law track he was one of only a very few black kids. And the only other one he knew well was Angelica Schuyler, and to say she was not particularly fond of Aaron would have been something of an understatement. 

Theodosia, though, had a gift when it came to hair; she knew how to do every kind of braid and twist and knot and whatever other things Aaron never paid enough attention to know even existed. When her mother did it, Theo’s hair was always absolutely perfect, and with her gone Aaron is at a loss to recreate the same kind of magic. He ends up looking online for instructions, finding whole websites devoted to different ways black women’s hair can be styled, and gradually learning all the things he once ignored. Intellectually knowing is different from practically doing, though, and the learning process can be frustrating. Sally showed him a few simple things, too, before she left, and the neat braids she put Theo’s hair in for the first day of school gave him a head start, but it’s still going to take practice. Aaron’s willing to do it, though. Anything for Theo. 

(Still, just another reason to find himself wishing Theodosia was still here.) 

In terms of dealing with his grief, though, Aaron does progress. So does Theo, Dr. Wheatley tells him; they’re doing a lot of creative exercises, learning healthy ways to express difficult emotions, and Theo loves it. Aaron’s just grateful a form of therapy so well-suited to his daughter exists. Himself, he’s never been particularly skilled at expressing anything, and that doesn’t change. Instead he listens. He goes to church and listens to sermons on forgiveness and faith, goes to therapy and listens to Dr. Pendleton’s advice, goes to support group meetings and listens to other people’s stories. 

Dr. Pendleton encourages him to talk more, and does manage to coax some things out of him gradually, but mostly Aaron still just listens. He processes turmoil best internally, always has, and sees no reason to burden others with his issues overmuch—even when others are therapists he’s paying. Besides, he knows he’s not supposed to compare his pain to anyone else’s, that it’s not healthy or productive, but he can’t help thinking he’d be in an even worse place than he has been were he in Dolley Payne’s shoes—a son lost to cancer, a marriage that didn’t outlive him by long. Aaron can’t imagine losing Theo. He thinks that if he did, it might just kill him too. 

At the practice, he works with Madison on a couple of cases to start out. Jefferson offers, but from what Aaron’s seen of their caseloads Jefferson tends to take on the more controversial clients and stray into more ethically gray areas, defending clients who, at least to Aaron’s eyes, are almost certainly guilty. And sure, Aaron has successfully defended a client he knew was guilty before, and sure, it’s only tax law—it’s not like Jefferson’s defending murderers or rapists—but Jefferson’s likely-guilty clients are a lot worse than his ever were; there are a surprising number of corporate giants based in this relatively unassuming suburban town. Aaron’s still getting the lay of the land around here, and he thinks he’d rather keep to the high ground. At least for now. 

So he stays with Madison, consulting on his relatively benign cases, most of them individual clients who probably _did_ get screwed over, most made simple mistakes, or at most did the wrong things for the right reasons. At Madison’s suggestion, too, he looks into mediation training for his next CLE. They all think it would be a good fit for him. Jefferson says he has the right demeanor. Coming from Jefferson, Aaron’s not sure that’s saying much, but he’ll take it. 

On the last Friday of September, Jefferson insists on dragging everyone at the firm out to a bar to celebrate the end of Aaron’s first month (which it’s not—it’s only the 25th—but Aaron’s not going to argue). Martha watches Theo for the evening. Aaron pays her extra and buys them pizza to make up for her giving up her Friday night. 

The bar is called Monticello. It looks like a reasonably nice place at first glance, but after a few minutes Aaron decides it’s less _classy_ , per se, than trying a little too hard not to be seedy. 

It seems like an appropriate place for Jefferson, he finds himself thinking, and immediately feels guilty about it. It’s not a nice thing to think about a person, after all. If Theo said something like that about one of her classmates, they would have to have a Serious Conversation about kindness and not judging people. But Aaron is an adult, and he doesn’t say it out loud, and Thomas Jefferson is presently leaning over the bar, obviously a little too far for the female bartender’s comfort, and grinning in a way that shows all his teeth. 

It occurs to Aaron that he’s never asked after Jefferson’s wife. He thinks he may have heard a reference to her house, though, from their daughter—maybe Thomas and Martha’s mother are divorced. If so, Aaron thinks he might understand why. 

“Sally, be a lamb,” Jefferson drawls, “and open us up a nice Bordeaux, would you?” 

“Which one?” the bartender, apparently Sally, asks. 

_“I_ don’t know, darlin’,” Jefferson replies, “just give us whatever’s good.” 

“Yeah, you’re going to have to be more specific,” says Sally, who looks thoroughly unamused. Madison sighs, long-suffering, and steps in. Aaron gets the feeling this has happened before. 

Whatever Madison orders, though, Aaron doesn’t hear it—his attention is stolen by the trio of men who stroll through the door just then. One of them is talking rather loudly to the others. His voice is familiar, Aaron realizes, the instant it filters in to grate on his ears. 

“Burr!” says his asshole neighbor, spotting him within seconds. Then he stops in his tracks when he sees who Aaron’s with, his air of pleasant surprise souring instantly. “And—of course. Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Madison.” 

“Well,” says Jefferson, his attention derailed by the new arrivals. “If it isn’t the Als.” 

“The Als?” says Aaron, confused. 

“Fun Al—” Jefferson gestures to a slightly mousy young man in nice jeans and a plaid shirt—“and Killjoy Al.” The direction he jerks his head makes it clear he means Alex, and the disgust in his voice makes clear once and for all how he feels about him. Aaron says nothing; there’s clearly quite the established dynamic here, and he doesn’t think he wants to pick a side just yet. For his own part, Alex just shrugs. 

“Quite frankly I’m proud to be called a killjoy by you, Tom,” he says, “by all means, feel free add whatever other modifiers you’d like to that. I do think _PC_ killjoy has a certain ring to it. Just please, don’t call me Al.” 

“Whatever, Al,” says Jefferson. Of course he does. “So—how do you know _Burr?”_

“Oh,” says Alex, “we—” 

“—we’re neighbors,” Aaron says, cutting him off, he hopes fairly smoothly. “We’ve only met the once.” 

“… Yeah.” Alex nods, looking somewhere between annoyed and grateful. 

“Huh,” is all Jefferson has to say to that. _“This,_ ” he adds, clapping the younger man on the shoulder, “is Al Gallatin. He’s Fun Al, aren’t you, Al?” 

“I’m pretty fun,” Al Gallatin agrees. 

“So what brings you here?” Aaron asks, drawing Alex’s attention back to him, a consequence he immediately regrets a little—that intensity is kind of like staring at a light bulb. 

“We go for drinks after school on Friday nights sometimes,” he says. “It was Al’s turn to pick the place this time, and he likes it here.” He glances at Jefferson, lip curling slightly. “God knows why.” 

“You’re all coworkers?” 

“Oh—yeah, Al teaches econ,” says Alex. “And—” he taps the shoulder of the teacher who’s gone up to the bar to order three beers. “Burr, this is Tim Pickering, he teaches English. Tim, Aaron Burr.” They shake hands. Pickering. Of course. He’s older than Aaron had expected, his hair graying. 

Their drinks arrive. Jefferson has been distracted by Gallatin, but Aaron finds he doesn’t mind too much; Madison greets Alex much more politely, if a little distantly, and they chat for a few moments about people Aaron doesn’t know before Madison goes off to where Jefferson has sat down. Aaron feels like he should follow, so he does. 

Gallatin seems a decent fellow; he’s more talkative than Madison, less slimy than Jefferson. Aaron doesn’t mind him, but his conversation with the other two isn’t interesting enough to hold his attention. As his law partners continue to chat with Gallatin, he finds himself watching from a distance how Alex interacts with Pickering. 

It’s not on purpose—it’s not like he cares—it’s just a natural curiosity, he decides, the kind that always comes from idle gossip. Aaron doubts the gossip was even remotely correct, though; he sees nothing to suggest the two men are in any kind of secret relationship. Their interactions are fond, but brotherly. 

None of them drinks more than a glass of wine in practice—they all have to drive home, of course. Eventually Jefferson becomes the first to head that way. Madison follows in fairly short order, and Gallatin walks off to talk to the other teachers. Aaron stands, and is about to go when, of course, 

“Burr!” Alex steps into his path. “Sir.” _Oh god,_ Aaron thinks, _he’s still doing that._ “You’re headed home?” Alex asks. 

“Yes,” says Aaron. “It’s getting late, and my daughter…” 

“Sure.” Alex smiles oddly nervously. “Hey, uh—any way I could bum a ride?” Aaron blinks. 

“What?” 

“I’ll pay for gas,” says Alex, voice growing slightly more confident. “It’s fine if you don’t want to, I can get a ride with Tim, that was the plan, just, you know, it’s a lot closer for you, so I was hoping—” 

“Oh—no, it’s fine,” says Aaron, though he instantly regrets it as Alex’s face lights up. 

“Thanks.” 

“You’re ready to go now?” 

“Yep.” 

“Then let’s go.” Aaron leaves the bar, asshole neighbor on his heels, and walks out to his car. Alex takes the passenger seat with all the nervous delicacy of someone riding for the first time in a vehicle driven by someone they don’t know particularly well. 

“So,” he says as Aaron starts the car, “what’s it like working with Jefferson? Is he as—you know, _himself_ —at work as he is in every other aspect of his life?” Inexplicably, Aaron feels laughter rise in his throat, close to bubbling out. He takes a moment to swallow it. 

“He’s a good lawyer,” he says, “and he seems to have raised his children well.” Alex does laugh. 

“That bad, huh.” Aaron says nothing to dignify that with a response. 

“Is your car in the shop?” he asks instead. Alex blinks. 

“My—oh, no. I don’t have a car, actually, I don’t drive.” Of course; Aaron’s seen him every day, walking to work. Somehow he had never put together that Alex didn’t drive at all. 

“Holdover from living in the city?” he asks. It’s taken some getting used to, driving again regularly after seven years in New York, but he counts himself lucky that it wasn’t too hard for him to pick it back up. Then again, he has a kid and a job several miles from where he lives, so he didn’t really have a choice. To his surprise, Hamilton’s laugh is a touch dark. 

“Kind of,” he says. “Anyway, yeah, the plan was that Tim would drive me home. But then you were there.” 

“And you were hit with a bout of opportunism,” Aaron remarks. Alex laughs. 

“It’s a chronic affliction,” he says. Aaron hates that it makes him chuckle. “Seems my dog and your daughter really hit it off,” Alex says, breaking the momentary silence and changing the subject. “I’m pretty grateful to her, actually, for playing with him. He needs the exercise.” Aaron nods. “She’s a smart kid,” Alex adds. 

“She takes after her mother,” says Aaron. There’s a pause. 

“I see.” Alex shifts nervously. They’re halfway home and he still hasn’t relaxed. “If you don’t mind, might I ask—her mother—?” 

“Cancer,” Aaron says shortly. 

“Oh,” Alex says softly after another moment. “How, um—how long?” 

“April.” 

“God. I’m so sorry.” Aaron just nods. He’s heard enough _god, I’m so sorry_ s to last a lifetime, and not even just in the past six months—there’s a reason he doesn’t talk about his own parents. _I’m so sorry_ don’t do much for him. Then, “I lost—I lost my mother when I was twelve,” Alex adds, and the conversation shifts around completely in Aaron’s mind—Hamilton probably understands, he realizes, and decides he could give him the benefit of the doubt a little more. 

“Two,” he volunteers. 

“I’m sorry?” 

“I was two. Both parents.” 

“Oh.” Alex is quiet again. Aaron’s starting to appreciate how rare that is. “Theo’s lucky to have you.” 

“I’m lucky to have her,” Aaron replies, mind darting to Dolley. They reach the turn into their neighborhood. 

“Hey, thanks for this,” Alex says. “It was really nice of you.” 

“It was no problem,” says Aaron. “You’re not exactly out of my way.” 

“Still, you didn’t have to.” Alex fumbles in his pocket as Aaron pulls up to the curb in front of his house. When he looks over, he realizes he’s being offered a crumpled ten-dollar bill. “Gas,” says Alex. 

“Oh, no—I can’t take that,” Aaron replies, holding his hands up rather than out. “It was a five-minute drive, Hamilton, I doubt we used ten _cents’_ worth of gas.” 

“For driving me, then.” 

“The labor’s not worth that, either.” 

“Fine.” Alex shrugs. “Your loss.” He unbuckles his seat belt and climbs out of the car, leaning down to wave and add, “thanks, Burr. Be seeing you.” It’s not until he shuts the door that Aaron realizes he’s been just as on-edge the entire drive as his asshole neighbor looked. He sits there until he can force himself to relax, then lets his forehead drop to rest on the steering wheel for a moment. 

_What the hell just happened?_ he thinks. He never talks to anyone about his parents who’s not in the right academic circles to immediately guess upon meeting him that, yes, he’s _that_ Aaron Burr, Jr. His law partners don’t know. Neither did anyone back at Montgomery. 

But somehow, Alexander Hamilton got it out of him in a month and three and a half conversations. The only person who’s ever found out faster was Theodosia. 

It’s not important. He gets out of the car, locks it, and heads inside to pay Martha and settle down to join in whatever Disney movie Theo is watching. _Mulan,_ it turns out. Aaron kisses the top of her head and sits down at the other end of the couch. They’re a few minutes shy of the avalanche scene, he realizes, and is glad he got home when he did. She’s seen it before, but he suspects it’s still going to be scary. 

He’s right. Two minutes later, the Huns are pouring down the mountainside and Theo is curled up in his lap, face half-hidden in his shirt. She’s getting a little big for this, and the shirt’s going to wrinkle, but Aaron doesn’t mind either of those things. 

He _is_ lucky to have her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I'm scared to make any promises regarding an updating schedule, but you can probably expect something within the next couple weeks. Also the next chapter probably won't be as long as the other two, which increases the likelihood of it being soon by a lot!
> 
> As always, I'm on tumblr @tobyzieglerintraining and I love kudos and comments very very much


	3. stand to the side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Beware the wrath of the civics teacher, huh,” Aaron says, cutting him off.
> 
> “Damn right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, bitch............................................
> 
> My draft says someone had asked for more Alex, and luckily for them that is exactly what was scheduled. Unluckily for them, it took almost 10 months. I am so so so so so so sorry

  


September 29

  


“Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad.” 

“Theo,” says Aaron. Once he was the type of parent who would call her by her full name for emphasis when she was bugging him, but he can’t bring himself to do it anymore. 

“Can I invite Seabury to come in our yard?” 

“Do you think he’ll RSVP?” 

“Dad.” Theo gives him an exasperated look. It’s hard to take that expression seriously on an eight-year-old face, but Aaron forces himself to acknowledge its validity and give her request his full attention. He shuts the case file he’s been reading. It’s just as well; the long strings of numbers were starting to melt his brain. Tax law is fairly straightforward, but the monotony can get to be a little much. 

“You’ll need to ask Mr. Hamilton if it’s okay,” he tells her. “And if there’s going to be a dog in our yard, I’d like to supervise. But yes, I think that would be all right.” 

“Yay!” Theo runs off. With a single long-suffering look at his stack of files, Aaron follows her downstairs and out through the kitchen door. 

Alexander Hamilton is already standing on his front lawn chatting with an unfamiliar young woman when they get outside. She’s holding a clipboard. He waves, catching sight of them as they approach, and then actually pauses his conversation to listen to Theo’s request. 

“Yeah, sure,” he says, “he comes to you, right? Actually, you know what, hang on—sorry—” The young woman he’s been chatting with doesn’t look too hurt; she follows him with her eyes as he jogs up to his fence and opens the gate to call for Seabury. Alex crouches down as the dog comes padding toward him, and her eyes widen a little. Aaron follows her gaze until he realizes what exactly she’s looking at. “Seabury! Hey, boy.” Alex scratches at the dog’s head. “You want to go in Theo’s yard, huh? Come on, let’s go, come on.” He and Theo herd Seabury through the adjacent gate (not that they need to—he pretty much goes by himself). Then, suddenly, Alex is back by the sidewalk. “Where were we?” he asks the woman. 

“I think you were about to sign up for a yard sign?” she says hopefully. 

“Ah, of course.” Alex takes her clipboard and pen. “Burr, sir,” he says, casually, without looking up, “this is Sybil, she’s canvassing for Measure 40. Sybil, Burr.” 

“Aaron,” Aaron clarifies, offering a hand. Sybil shakes it firmly. 

“Are you interested in supporting our schools, Aaron?” she asks him. 

“I’m interested, yes,” says Aaron. 

“…Interested enough for a yard sign?” Sybil prods, her face hopeful. Aaron has never had a political bumper sticker on his car, let alone a yard sign. Not that he’d had a yard to put it in before. He shakes his head. 

“Sorry, not today.” 

“All right.” She smiles at Alex as he signs his name with a flourish and hands back the clipboard. “I’ll bring that by tomorrow?” 

“Looking forward to it,” says Alex, smiling at her much the same way she’s smiling at him. “And please, let me know if there’s anything else I can do.” 

“Sure. Thanks!” Sybil nods politely to Aaron, then walks off down the sidewalk. Alex actually leans forward a little, so that he can see around Aaron, to watch her go. Aaron rolls his eyes. 

“So, how many women does it take to get you to _buy_ something, Hamilton?” he asks once she’s out of earshot. Alex steps hurriedly back. 

“Hey, fuck you,” he says, though there’s no particular heat behind it, and they’re far enough away that Aaron doesn’t think Theo will have heard, so although he’s affronted, he doesn’t react except to give Hamilton a look. “Schools in this state are _criminally_ underfunded,” Alex continues, with the air of someone headed in the direction of a rant—“not that they aren’t in _every_ state, and there are plenty that actually have it worse, but this is the state I’ve chosen to live and work in, so of _course_ I’m going to take a stand.” He pauses for breath, but not for long. “And it’s hardly a new issue to me, Burr, I’m a _teacher._ So I have a personal stake. And, I mean, so do you. Possibly—probably—even more so.” He jerks his head back toward the yard, where Aaron realizes he actually isn’t supervising anything. As it’s turned out. 

“You don’t have to convince me,” he says as Alex opens his mouth again, cutting him off before he can continue. Alex looks slightly startled. 

“Oh.” He nods. “Okay. I guess a yard sign isn’t that important, as long as you vote for it in November.” 

“I would,” says Aaron. Alex nods again. 

“Okay. Good.” Then he frowns. “Wait, what do you mean you _would?”_

“If I could.” 

“Well, what do you mean you _can’t?”_ Oh, god. Aaron sighs. Of course he’s going to be like this. 

“I can’t vote in New York,” he says. “I grew up in Jersey and never re-registered when I moved up here.” He and Theodosia hadn’t entirely expected the move to be permanent. Then she got diagnosed, and suddenly they had to put down some serious financial roots. Somehow voting had never really felt like a priority in the midst of all that. 

“You don’t _vote?”_ Alex looks like he’s having trouble processing the concept, and also like he’s approaching apoplectic. Aaron just shrugs, hoping for a way out of this conversation. Alex shakes his head. “I’ll get registration materials for you,” he says—doesn’t ask, just declares. “You’ve still got a week to register for the November election.” 

“You really don’t have to do that,” says Aaron, who is perfectly capable of getting them himself—if he remembers, which, after all, he hasn’t for the last eight years, so maybe Alex has a point. But Aaron’s not going to admit that. 

“Oh, yes I do,” Alex says darkly. “It’s just a ballot measure and a special election for a city council seat this year, but next year’s going to be pretty fucking important. And even if it wasn’t, voting is an important civic duty we’re fortunate to be able to exercise—” 

“Beware the wrath of the civics teacher, huh,” Aaron says, cutting him off. 

“Damn right.” 

“Would you mind not swearing so much within earshot of my kid?” Aaron asks, knowing it’s probably fruitless. 

“We’re not within earshot of your kid.” 

“How do you know? You can’t see her. For all you know she could be right behind you.” 

“She’s not, though, she’s back in the yard.” _Now_ Alex checks over his shoulder. “See? Well beyond hearing range.” Aaron rolls his eyes. 

“Okay,” he says, in a way that he hopes sounds final. “I’m going to go check on Theo, shall I?” Alex shrugs. Aaron takes that as acquiescence, and breathes a quiet sigh of relief as he extracts himself from their conversation. 

He half—maybe more than half—expects Alex to jump back to the subject of voting whenever he sees him next, so it’s kind of a surprise when, the next evening, he just smiles and waves from his yard when Theo goes over to see Seabury again, Aaron watching from the kitchen porch where he sits with a stack of case files piled on his lap. Maybe, he thinks, his asshole neighbor is just so scatterbrained that it’s since slipped his mind. It wouldn’t really surprise him. 

He should be so lucky, he thinks ruefully when he pulls the mail out of the box on coming home from work the next day. It’s raining for the first time since they moved, so he doesn’t plan to linger, but he finds himself standing there in shock for a moment nonetheless. The largest item—and, more to his annoyance, the only one that doesn’t appear to be junk mail—is a manila envelope with only his name written on it. No address. Clearly from a neighbor—and he’s only acquainted with the one. The penmanship is surprisingly elegant. Aaron rolls his eyes and heads inside before any of the mail gets wet. 

Once indoors, he tosses the rest onto the kitchen table and glares at the big envelope for a moment before opening it. It is, as he suspected, voter registration papers, with a local voter’s pamphlet thrown in for good measure. More interesting is the—sweet Jesus, _full-page_ —handwritten note folded around it. A green post-it is stuck to the sheet of paper, a single word written on it in large block (Sharpie) letters: VOTE. Aaron sighs. He would love to ignore it and let himself be ruled by spite, but his curiosity wins out. 

It is, of course, quickly overtaken by incredulity. 

_Mr. Burr –_

_I had planned to just stick this stuff in your mailbox with this post-it stuck to it, but I realized that approach might be too combative and less likely to yield my desired results, so I thought a more nuanced message would be appropriate. Such a message turned out too long to fit on a post-it, so instead I’m writing you this note._

_Obviously voting is a choice that is up to each one of us: our country was founded on liberal principles that prioritize the rights of the individual as a member of the community, including the right to choose to abstain from civic participation in that community. Whatever my personal opinions on the subject of whiny self-important baby-men who elect not to elect,_

“Are you f—” Aaron catches himself before he can finish the sentence—Theo is in the other room, after all. 

_I as an individual do not have the right to impose those beliefs on you—as Locke wrote and I now paraphrase, not having the original source immediately at hand, the rights of the individual extend only so far as they do not infringe on the rights of others. The mediation of such is of course the purpose of government. But I digress._

Alex is well-suited to a career as a civics teacher, Aaron decides, and is he ever glad his own school days are long over. 

_I hope you won’t consider my delivery of these forms too much of an imposition—in keeping with this theme, I promise not to broach the subject again, at least not in such a way as to needle you. At least, that is, I promise to try. All theoretical matters aside, voter access itself is an issue near and dear to my heart, and I can certainly imagine how even for an educated, one assumes relatively well-informed, professional like yourself—the ideal voter, frankly—voting is something that might get swept aside by more immediate obligations like your daughter and your career. As you now have one week left to register, my only goal here is to facilitate, in all senses of the word, what I realize might otherwise be difficult if not impossible for you. In this, I am, _

_Your obedient servant,_

What the fuck? 

_A. Ham_

What the fuck. 

What the _fuck._

Somewhere, deep down, Aaron supposes he has to admit he’s a little bit grateful—saving him the trouble of getting the stuff himself _has_ increased the probability of his actually registering approximately tenfold. 

On the other hand, this is definitely an imposition, it’s definitely inappropriate, and quite frankly it’s just—insane. Not even the delivering voter registration forms part so much— _that_ seems like a solid start for a policy the _actual_ government could stand to implement—no, it’s the _handwritten letter_ that accompanies them. 

Aaron reads it again, and once again gets as far as being indirectly called a self-important baby-man before he stops reading. This time he folds it haphazardly, not caring if the page crumples, and shoves it back into the manila envelope. The forms he leaves on the table. 

“Hi, Daddy!” Theo has evidently realized he’s home. Martha walks into the kitchen a few steps behind her. 

“Hey, Mr. Burr.” 

“How was your day?” Aaron asks them both, but mostly Theo. 

“We learned about five-part paragraphs!” says Theo. 

“Everything went fine,” Martha says over her head. “We played with Mr. Hamilton’s dog for a while, but then it started raining.” 

“Fall is definitely here,” says Aaron as he pulls out his checkbook. He pays her, and she’s on her way, telling Theo she’ll see her tomorrow and waving as she goes. 

Aaron glares at the manila envelope all evening, then leaves it when he goes up to go to bed, but in the morning the first thing he does—after coffee—is to fill out the information and get it ready to be mailed. That, he does on the way to work, once Theo is safely at school. That business finished, he puts it out of his mind, aside from making a note in his calendar that November 3rd is Election Day, and he needs to make time to go to the polls. 

With a week left til Halloween, they finally get a chance to go shopping for the pieces of Theo’s costume. She walked out of the movie theater last Christmas and announced she was going to be Little Orphan Annie next Halloween, and she’s hung onto the idea for almost a year. Aaron’s impressed, really. Last Christmas was back in the very early stages of Theodosia being sick again, just the beginning of the nightmare—it feels like a lifetime ago for him. He’s not completely sure last Christmas was even real anymore. But ten months later Theo is still dead set on being Annie for Halloween, so Annie she shall be. 

Aaron had sort of assumed the costume for a modern-day version of Little Orphan Annie could just be assembled from his daughter’s existing wardrobe, but as it turns out there are times when Theo is, he thinks, a little _too_ much his daughter—for an eight-year-old, she doesn’t wear a lot of warm colors, or bright colors in general. Her closet definitely does not contain the twenty-first-century Annie’s bright purple coat, and now she’s insisting on it. 

Aaron finds a secondhand store in town he hopes will serve their needs, not wanting to spend too much on something he’s not sure, knowing his daughter, she’ll wear more than once or twice. It’s perfect; they find a coat Theo likes, that fits her, in what Aaron thinks must be record time. 

It’s nice. He’s been waiting on their good fortune to catch up with them—surely it had to eventually—and even if it’s going to be just in minor ways like this, the little moments of luck that make parenting that much easier, Aaron will take it. 

Alex is outside when they get home, Seabury lounging on the lawn beside him. Aaron double-takes—his asshole neighbor is crouched in front of his fence, half of which is suddenly shiny and black, holding a paintbrush. Okay then. 

Aaron is reasonably certain that painting your white picket fence black is the kind of thing that gets you in deep shit with the neighborhood homeowners’ association. For a moment he doubts Alex considered that; then he changes his mind and decides that no, he probably did consider that, and just doesn’t care. Or, worse, he’s doing it with that exact purpose in mind. 

“Hey!” Alex turns around as they get out of the car, waving the paintbrush. A bit of paint splatters onto his cheek. He doesn’t seem to notice. Seabury bounds up as Theo gets out of the car to nudge at her, his tail wagging. She hugs him, laughing. 

“Hi, Seabury.” 

“Big shopping trip?” Alex asks, gesturing with the brush towards the bags Aaron hefts out of the trunk. 

“We got my Halloween costume!” Theo announces. 

“Oh, nice!” Alex sets the paintbrush in the can of paint and stands up, wincing a little. Aaron wonders how long he’s been in that position. “What are you going to be?” 

“Annie!” Theo bounces on her toes. 

“As in, Little Orphan?” 

“Yeah!” 

“Sweet. And are you going to be Daddy Warbucks?” he adds to Aaron, obviously teasing. 

“Daddy Warbucks?” Theo looks confused. Aaron realizes she’s never seen the original. 

“The original Mister Stacks,” he explains. “No, I don’t think…” but Theo’s face has lit up now, and Aaron groans internally. Ten months, ten months he’s managed to avoid it, and now with one sentence his asshole neighbor has ruined all his careful work. 

“Will you?” Theo asks, looking up at him. “Please, Daddy? Please? All you have to do is dress up like you’re going to work and that can be your costume! Please, please, please—” 

“I’ll think about it,” says Aaron, knowing he now pretty much has to do it. “You going to ask Seabury to be Sandy, too?” He shoots a look at Alex over Theo’s head. Alex just shrugs, looking nonchalant. 

“If you want.” Oh, of course he’s going to acquiesce _just like that._ Aaron rolls his eyes. “He’ll be good, I’m absolutely positive,” Alex adds, smirking slightly, “and he could probably use the exercise.” 

“Yes!” Theo hugs Seabury tight. He lets her, though Aaron thinks it’s a little long-sufferingly. He’s used to his owner’s enthusiasm, he supposes. 

He really shouldn’t be feeling this degree of kinship with a dog. 

“What are you going to be for Halloween, Mr. Alex?” Theo asks, as Seabury finally loses his patience and extracts himself from her embrace. 

“The scariest thing of all,” says Alex, raising his eyebrows and grinning evilly, although sometimes Aaron thinks that’s just his regular smile. 

“What’s that?” 

“A _math_ teacher! Ooh!” He wiggles his fingers like he’s doing magic or something. Theo frowns. 

“I like math,” she says. 

“Yeah, I did too, actually,” Alex tells her. “A lot of my students don’t, though.” 

“Why are you painting your fence black?” 

“For Halloween, of course!” He’s lost Theo’s attention, though; Seabury has come trotting back up to her with a tennis ball in his jaws. 

“Dad—” 

“Go ahead.” Aaron’s not going to fight it. She picks up the ball when Seabury drops it at her feet, tosses it through the open gate into the backyard, then runs after him as he takes off. Aaron sets the bags back in the trunk—that’s not happening for the moment—and walks up to stand where he can keep an eye on her. Alex drops to his knees to start working on his fence again. 

“I’m not kidding about the math thing,” he informs Aaron. “I have a whole plan. On Friday I’m going to dress like one of the math teachers and give all my students a fake stats quiz. Scariest costume _ever.”_

“I guess,” says Aaron. 

“And then we’ll talk about margins of error and how political polling models are outdated. I do teach for real _sometimes,_ you know.” Aaron can’t hold back a chuckle. 

“So are you going to paint this white again after Halloween’s over?” he asks, gesturing to the fence. Alex glances up at him, smirking. Something in Aaron’s stomach jolts, and he looks away. 

“Nah,” Alex says, “I’m going to see how long I can hold out before Carol or Diane or Kathy or whoever starts suggesting that maybe it doesn’t quite fit into the neighborhood.” Oh, god, Aaron’s worst fear was right. “Then,” Alex adds, “the real social experiment begins.” 

“What’s that?” Aaron asks resignedly when he doesn’t immediately elaborate, knowing he’s probably going to regret it. He can’t see Alex since he’s turned back to the fence, but he thinks he can hear the smirk get even more wicked as he speaks. 

“Find out what happens when a long-haired thirtysomething Latino dude suggests to a bunch of middle-aged white ladies that maybe their discomfort with a black picket fence in a neighborhood full of white picket fences is indicative of some deeper underlying prejudice.” 

“That’s…” A terrible idea, Aaron thinks, and is surprised by how badly he wants to laugh. 

“Yeah, yeah,” says Alex after a long moment in which Aaron fails to finish the thought aloud, “I didn’t expect you to get behind it, Mr. Respectability.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Oh, no offense intended,” Alex adds, in a way that suggests offense was absolutely intended, “you just don’t seem like the kind of guy who’d ever knowingly make trouble for anyone else. Or condone it.” Aaron does laugh now, to dispel his own discomfort— _deflecting,_ Dr. Pendleton would probably say, as he does, generally, more than once a session. He knows the discomfort comes through in the sound, too. 

“Well,” he says, “I’ve got nothing to complain about.” _Except that my wife’s dead and I have a narcissist for a law partner._ He knows Alex is thinking more on a structural level, though, and of course, right on cue— 

“Really,” says Alex, tone dripping with skepticism. “You can’t think of anything.” _And you for a neighbor,_ Aaron amends internally. 

“You’ll pardon me if my immediate focus is on taking care of my daughter,” he says firmly. For a moment Alex looks as if he wants to argue some more, but then he stops, softening, even nodding slightly as if to concede him the point. Aaron would gladly let it end there, but somehow he can’t quite keep from adding, “You have fun alienating the PTA, though, Hamilton.” His asshole neighbor has been a bad influence on him, he decides. 

“Oh, I plan to.” Alex finishes off the current picket with a little flourish, then shuffles over a few inches to start on the next. Aaron takes a step back, mostly to avoid the possibility of getting black paint accidentally flicked onto his gray suit, and a little bit because moving has brought Alex, on his knees, uncomfortably close. 

“Uh,” he says. “Well, good luck with your art project.” 

“It’s not a—no, wait, actually,” says Alex, not looking up, “I like that. Actually, no, I’d like to amend it—it’s not an art _project_ , it’s an art _installation._ ” 

“… Okay,” says Aaron. 

“All the best art is political,” says Alex, Aaron thinks more to himself than to Aaron now. 

“Right. I’ll see you later, Hamilton.” Aaron starts to step away, but— 

“Wait!” Alex spins around suddenly, paint flying everywhere, and it’s not very dignified, but Aaron actually takes a flying leap backwards to get away from it. “Sorry.” He doesn’t sound or look at all sorry. “Did you get the papers?” 

“The—oh.” Aaron had nearly forgotten. It had been so nice. “Yes.” After a pause he reluctantly adds, “…thank you.” 

“Just doing my civic duty.” Alex smiles sunnily and turns back to his “art installation.” 

“Right. Well. Thanks.” Now Aaron turns and walks off toward his own house for real. He almost expects to be stopped in his tracks yet again, but evidently his asshole neighbor has said his piece—all the pieces he can think of for the moment, at least. 

Theo is antsy all week, but the weekend arrives again quickly, and with it Halloween. They put on their costumes, Theo excitedly, Aaron resignedly. While there’s no rain in the forecast, thankfully, he makes sure they both have warm coats, as it’s supposed to get down into the upper thirties once the sun sets. With any luck they won’t be out too long—but then again it’s Theo’s first time trick-or-treating in a suburban neighborhood, and she seems pretty excited about it, so Aaron isn’t hopeful. 

All set, they head next door to the very first house on their list, the one with the black fucking fence. 

“Trick or treat!” Theo bounces on her toes a little as Alex opens the door a few seconds after the doorbell makes Seabury start barking. 

“We got Annie!” Alex holds out a bowl of miniature candy bars with one hand, hanging onto Seabury’s leash with the other. Then, to Aaron’s utter shock, he starts _singing—_ “She’s like the shine in your shoes, or hearing a blues that’s great…” His voice is surprisingly good. “Makes you relax, like a big tax rebate!” Theo is giggling; Alex grins. “Daddy Warbucks knows all about big tax rebates, isn’t that right?” 

“Don’t let them relax you too much,” Aaron says dryly. Alex snorts. 

“Yeah. Okay, we’ve got a kid in need of a dog, right?” Seabury is snuffling around the candy bowl. “Shoo,” Alex tells him. “Go with Theo.” 

“Yeah, come with me, Seabury!” Theo takes the leash when Alex holds it out to her. His hand free, he wags a finger, mock-scolding. 

“Sandy! Sandy’s his name, if you please!” And, he’s singing again. Theo is delighted, so Aaron decides he doesn’t mind too terribly. He _does_ have a decent voice. A little nasal, maybe, but so is his speaking voice. “If you don’t believe me—ask any one of the fleas!” Good breath support and diction, though. Not that Aaron _cares_ whether Alex can sing or not—it’s just a habit left over from more than a decade of church, high school, and college choir, judging other people’s voices. 

“All right,” Aaron says after a moment, as Theo applauds. “Thanks again for letting us borrow Seabury. I promise we’ll have him back by curfew.” 

“Good,” says Alex very seriously, “because if he’s out past midnight, he’ll turn back into a pumpkin.” Theo bursts into a true peal of laughter at that. Aaron doesn’t, because he never does, but he can’t quite keep from smiling, and that seems to make Alex more pleased with himself than he’s seen yet. Aaron carefully schools his face back into cool apathy. Alex looks down. 

“I think we’d better get going, Theo,” Aaron says. “Seabury.” 

“Daddy!” says Theo imperiously. “You have to call me _Annie._ And he’s not Seabury, he’s Sandy.” 

“Whatever you say, Annie,” Aaron sighs. Alex, still looking down at child and dog, smiles softly. 

“See you later, Seabury.” He crouches down to hold the dog by the snout and look him in the eye. “Be good.” Seabury’s giant tongue slobbers across his owner’s mouth and nose in reply. “Heugh!” says Alex, and while he’s busy wiping at his face with his sleeve Seabury, the opportunist, goes for the candy bowl. “Oh no you don’t,” says Alex, jerking it away without, evidently, needing to see to know what’s going on—“this is full of chocolate, buddy, and we agreed, _you’re_ not gonna go and die on me before your time.” 

That was a weird place to put the emphasis in that sentence, Aaron thinks, and then decides to think nothing of it. Alex stands again in a surprisingly coordinated manner and says, “well, have a good trick-or-treat,” as if Aaron and Theo have witnessed none of what just happened. 

“You too,” says Aaron, allowing him what dignity can be reclaimed here. “See you later.” 

“Au revoir.” Alex waves with his free hand, then kicks the door shut behind them as they start down the porch. 

“All right,” says Aaron, taking Seabury’s leash to minimize the chance of Theo accidentally dropping it—and so Theo can have a free hand, which he takes with his own. “Which way are we going first?” 

“That way.” Theo points down the street, away from their house and Alex’s. 

“Okay,” says Aaron, steeling himself as much as he is encouraging Theo. “Let’s do this.” 

After an extremely lucrative hour of trick-or-treating, Aaron thinks he might reasonably expect that Theo would be starting to tire. He would, however, be wrong. 

“Please can I hold the leash, Daddy?” she’s wheedling. “Sandy is _Annie’s_ dog. Please? I promise I’ll be _really_ careful—” 

“All right,” Aaron relents. “Hold on tight.” He doesn’t think she needs the warning, really—Seabury’s an elderly, easygoing dog, hasn’t pulled on the lead at all this evening, and even if she does drop the leash Aaron strongly doubts he’ll run away. Amble, at worst. 

Trick-or-treating continues, in the sort of zig-zag pattern Aaron’s been taking, trying to hit as many houses as possible while never going too far from their own in case Theo does tire out suddenly, as children are wont to do. Down the street on one side, back up it on the other. He’s glad their suburban neighborhood is still a grid, like the city, and not a series of cul-de-sacs—were it the latter, he thinks he’d be pretty turned around by now, in the dark. 

They finish up with Birch Street and move on to Oak, which Aaron would almost think had been named deliberately, after the large trees that line it, had Birch not been completely lacking in peeling bark. Something about zoning seems to have led them into an older and less carefully-designed neighborhood upon reaching this street—some of the trees are closer to the sidewalk than the houses, and in a few places the roots have cracked through, making the panels of cement jut up at odd angles. Aaron knows to walk a little more carefully here. 

Theo does not, or doesn’t see the need, so she keeps on skipping ahead, and before Aaron can do anything she’s tripped on a root, shrieked, and fallen just short of on her face, catching herself with her hands. Candy goes everywhere. Aaron rushes to help his daughter, struggling to push back panic—he’s supposed to be taking care of her he should be watching her every move he should be watching more _closely_ why didn’t he see this coming why didn’t he stop her _he’s all she has_ —but she’s already sitting up, and when he’s close enough to examine her there are tears in her eyes, but her little jaw sets and they don’t fall. 

“Are you okay?” he gasps. Theo holds up her hands, which are visibly a little scraped, but she nods. Her lower lip trembles a little. Aaron tries to stay calm. “Okay,” he says. “That’s—that’s not so bad. It’s gonna be okay. We’ll just need to go home and get you some band-aids.” 

“My candy spilled,” says Theo. 

“I see that. It’s gonna be okay—we can pick it up.” Aaron finds her little bag and starts piling candy back into it while Theo sits on somebody’s lawn and watches. He thinks he’s just about found it all when she says, 

“Where’s Seabury?” 

Aaron does _not_ swear in front of his child, but once again, it’s a close thing. 

“Well,” he says, straightening up, trying to modulate his voice to stay even and reassuring, “he can’t have gone far.” 

They call for Seabury all the way down Oak Street. Then they double back to Birch Street and call there. He doesn’t come on Elm, either. Aaron’s getting a sinking feeling in his stomach, or he would be if it wasn’t already in knots. There aren’t a lot of cars out, not in this quiet neighborhood—it’s Halloween—but in the time he’s been missing, Seabury could easily have gotten to a busier street, and… 

“I’m sorry I lost Seabury,” says Theo in a very small voice. Aaron sighs, and crouches down to her level. 

“It’s not your fault, Theo,” he tells her firmly. Really, he should never have accepted responsibility for a second living creature in the first place—it’s all he can do to take care of Theo, and tonight he hasn’t even done _that_ so well. 

“But I dropped his leash,” says Theo, “and now we can’t find him!” They’ve been looking for half an hour now, and with that, she finally does burst into tears. Aaron pulls her tight against his chest. He doesn’t say anything, because he can’t deny the basic truth of what she’s said—well, he _could,_ but that’s not really his parenting style. 

“It’s still not your fault,” is what he settles for. “It’s nobody’s fault.” Theo doesn’t stop crying. Aaron hugs her tighter for a moment. Then he stands, and hoists her up with him, deciding they’re close enough to home that he can carry his fifty pounds of crying eight-year-old the rest of the way. She’s definitely harder to lift than when she was three, but he’s pretty sure he carried boxes of books that were heavier during the move. 

“Can I have a piggy-back ride?” she sniffles. Aaron sighs, and lets her down so that can be arranged. He’s not sure his back can handle the weight as well as his arms, but it’ll be fine. He’s only thirty-one, after all. 

They move a little more slowly than they would walking side by side. Aaron feels momentarily pleased with himself, his plan to never go too far from home vindicated—except he can’t be pleased with himself for anything, not when he’s _lost his neighbor’s dog._ Oh, god. God fucking damn it. He’s lost his asshole neighbor’s dog. Alex will probably be furious. He may never speak to him again. Not that Aaron _cares_ —frankly, Alexander Hamilton never speaking to him again might be a blessing, except that Theo seems to like him. And his dog. 

Who Aaron has lost. 

Aaron hasn't cried since Theodosia died, and tears don't quite well in his eyes now, but all of a sudden he feels that familiar, unwelcome pricking. Even if his asshole neighbor isn't his _favorite_ person (not by a _very_ large margin), they had at least been getting along fairly well lately, and now Aaron is going to have to explain to Alex that he’s _lost_ his _dog,_ whom he obviously adores (even when shouting curses), and who— 

Is sitting on Alex’s lawn. His ears perk up and his tail starts wagging as Aaron stops short at the sight of him. Theo looks up. 

“Seabury!” She exclaims, and slides down off Aaron’s back to run to the dog, scraped hands and any other trauma evidently forgotten. “You came home!” Aaron stays where he is, staring at the dog, hovering somewhere between relieved and furious as Theo throws her arms around a very accommodating Seabury. 

“ _Dumb_ dog,” he mutters, and walks over to scratch his head. Seabury pants up at him, looking like he’s smiling, even though Aaron is an adult and knows dogs _don’t_ smile. “So,” he says to Theo, “now that we’ve found him, do you think it’s time to go home?” Theo extracts herself from the dog and looks down at her bag. Seabury notices, and starts to snuffle around it with great interest. Theo yanks it away, giggling—and a welcome sound it is. 

“I _guess_ I _probably_ have enough candy,” she says uncertainly, holding it up as if weighing it. Aaron laughs. 

“Enough to last you, what, until Christmas?” He weighs it in his own hand for a moment—“oh, no, _that_ much candy will hold you through til Easter.” 

“Daddy!” Theo laughs. “Yeah, let’s go home. But first we need to give Seabury back to Mr. Alex, and tell him about our adventure—” 

“Maybe let me tell him about the adventure?” says Aaron. Alex won’t be openly angry, he imagines, since Theo is here, but Aaron still thinks he ought to be the one to actually explain what happened. He’s the adult; he is responsible. 

They knock on Hamilton’s door, and he opens it almost immediately—the trick-or-treating window must not quite be over, though Aaron hasn’t seen anyone else on their street in the past few minutes. 

“Back so soon!” he says. “How was your Halloween, Annie?” 

“Okay,” says Theo. 

“Just okay?” Alex glances at Aaron. His guilt must show on his face, because Alex double-takes and his eyes narrow. Aaron sighs. 

“Seabury got away from us for a bit,” he says. Best to get it over with. Alex’s eyebrows shoot up. “I’m very sorry,” Aaron continues. “We called for him, but he didn’t come.” 

“Yeah, he’s a little deaf.” Alex gives him a brief dark look, then drops down again to scratch Seabury under his jowls. “Did you run away from Theo? I told you to be good, boy.” 

“It’s my fault,” Theo says in a small voice. Aaron curses himself as Alex looks up at his daughter, not quite frowning. 

“What happened?” he asks. Aaron breathes a silent sigh of relief. 

“I tripped, and, and I dropped his leash, and I’m really sorry,” says Theo, voice wobbling a little, though she doesn’t cry again. 

“Oh, Theo, that’s not your fault,” says Alex immediately, and with that his credit is instantly multiplied to about the third power in Aaron’s book. “Are _you_ okay?” Theo nods. 

“My hands got scraped and my candy fell out of the bag,” she says. “But Daddy picked it up for me.” 

“Are you sure he got it all?” Alex asks. “Because, you know, if you’re missing candy, it turns out I have a lot left over, and I could probably spot you what you’ve lost, and then some...” Theo looks up at Aaron excitedly. He sighs. 

“You can take the candy, Theo.” 

“Great,” says Alex, “cause I don’t think I’m getting any more trick-or-treaters tonight, and all this candy’s not going to do _me_ any good.” Theo proffers her bag, and he dumps—yep, all that’s left of the bowl, which looks to be about a quarter of what he had originally, inside. Aaron had been kidding, when he’d said the candy would last until Christmas, but now… 

“What do we say, Theo?” he prompts, because for once she’s forgotten her manners, gaping open-mouthed at the enormous pile of candy that now nearly overflows from her bag. 

“ _Thank_ you, Mr. Alex,” says Theo. Alex laughs, and stands to put the bowl back where it had been. When he comes back, he locks eyes with Aaron. “But you found him, clearly,” he says, more seriously. Right. Theo’s a kid, but Aaron hadn’t for one second thought he would be off the hook. 

“Well—” Aaron winces. “Actually, he came home on his own. We found him in the yard.” Alex looks at him for a moment, face unreadable; then it splits into a grin, and he looks back down at Seabury. 

“Of course he came home,” he remarks, seemingly to the dog. “Of course he did. What a dog.” 

“I really am terribly sorry,” says Aaron again. Alex waves a hand. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “No harm, no foul.” 

“Still, I want to make sure I apo—” 

“Burr,” says Alex, stopping him. “It’s okay. I’m just glad everyone’s okay.” He sounds a little resentful, Aaron thinks, but he decides to take him at face value rather than risk irritating him any further. 

“Okay.” He breathes out, slowly. “Well, now that we know that everyone's okay, _we_ should probably get home so Little Orphan Annie here can count her candy and get to bed.” 

“Sure,” says Alex. “See you tomorrow, neighbors.” He gently tugs Seabury inside and closes the door behind them with a wave as they leave again. 

Theo counts her candy at the kitchen table. Aaron loosens his tie and sits down, too tired to go up and change out of his suit, even though it’s getting uncomfortable. Then he remembers her hands—she’s too distracted by the candy to have complained yet—and runs upstairs anyway, to find the first aid kit. 

“Daddy, I’m counting my candy,” says Theo reproachfully when he returns and sits down beside her, armed with antiseptic and band-aids. She appears to be sorting it into piles organized by type—so specific as to have two separate piles for Milky Ways and Milky Way Midnights. Fair enough—Aaron suspects he’ll be eating most of the latter. She is only eight. 

“I know, sweetheart,” he says gently. “Will you take a break so we can get your scrapes cleaned up? It’ll only take a minute. I don’t think you’re hurt very badly, but it’s best to be sure.” 

“Fine.” Theo relents, as she usually does when he explains things logically. She holds out her hands, and winces a little when Aaron applies the antiseptic, but sits quietly and lets him stick on the band-aids for her right hand. The left hand she bandages herself. Then, before she returns to her candy, she holds them up to inspect. “Almost as good as Mommy would do it,” she pronounces. _That_ throws Aaron for a loop. 

“I missed your Mommy a lot tonight,” he says after a moment’s quiet. 

“Me too,” says Theo, looking down. They sit with it for a minute. Then Theo holds out her hands again. “Mommy would kiss it better,” she says. “Will you?” Aaron kisses the band-aids better. Once he’s done that, Theo yawns. 

“You know, the candy will still be here in the morning,” Aaron points out. And it’s Saturday, so she won’t have school tomorrow. “Maybe it’s time you got some sleep. It’s been a big day.” Theo sighs. 

“O _kay,”_ she says, and trudges up the stairs. While she brushes her teeth and gets into pajamas, Aaron shuts the house down for the night, turning off lights and locking all the doors. He glances out the kitchen window just long enough to see that his asshole neighbor is, of course, out with his dog, presumably waiting for Seabury to do his business so they can go back inside. He doesn’t look annoyed, or even particularly upset—more wistful, Aaron thinks, and goes to head upstairs. 

Theo has already crashed by the time he gets there, dozing in bed with a book open beside her and the light still on. Aaron laughs softly to himself and removes the book, finding a bookmark to stick in it before he sets it on her bedside table. 

“Good night, Little Theodosia,” he says, and kisses her forehead before he turns off the light. She doesn’t stir. He shuts her door behind him and heads to bed, trying not to look himself in the eye in the mirror as he brushes his teeth. 

In bed, Aaron lays awake for what could be just minutes but feels like hours, staring into the darkness, replaying the scene over and over in his head. Theo trips. The candy goes everywhere. He rushes to help her. Seabury… vanishes. He didn’t even _notice_ when Seabury ran off, he had been so focused on her—and so he should be, he reminds himself; he’s all she has. He’s all she has. 

In six months, he’s never missed Theodosia’s presence in the bed quite so much. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! I'm back. I'm a piece of shit who says things like "I'm going to keep up a regular posting schedule!" and then IMMEDIATELY VANISHES but it's ok! Cause I'm back! Definitely! Probably! I'm making no promises this time but like hopefully this long and eventful chapter has assuaged things a little? Maybe?
> 
> Anyway all the youthful idealism and happiness that was driving me to write this bizarrely fluffy AU has been sucked out of my soul by the events of the intervening very nearly year, but hey, I watched the 2014 Annie the other day and remembered it was a minor plot point in the chapter I had half-done and was inspired to finally finish it. Also, writing this is a nice brief escape from constantly worrying about fascism, I guess. Also, TO BE CLEAR, I was writing this a year ago, so it is set IN 2015. That election they're coming up on is very minor and unimportant in the grand scheme of things except maybe for New York schools and the town they live in or something. God were those good times. Oh my god I'm so sad. 
> 
> I've also actually gotten to see Hamilton in Chicago since then, and the part that made me cry most was neither Tomorrow There'll Be More Of Us nor The World Was Wide Enough/Who Lives Who Dies, but One Last Time, because when I saw it we were at t-24 days left of the Obama presidency and the EC had just done what everyone knew it would inevitably do and condemned us to what we're living now and that just really drove everything home. Also imo Joshua Henry's Burr had like 100% more chill than Leslie Odom Jr.'s Burr as far as I can tell from the cast album and what video there is of the OBC, so that characterization may seep into this a little, but also it probably won't because I personally find No Chill Burr more fun to write.
> 
> So. This fic and I are back, for whatever timespan - I'm in Spain currently and have even more free time than I'm used to having at school regularly, so if the motivation stays I _might_ be able to get through this fic faster than I was going a year ago. Maybe. But like I said, I make no promises. But i can hope.


	4. we'll make it right for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Here’s the spare key. Please don’t lose it.”
> 
> “Oh, don’t worry, I never lose things.” That’s so clearly a bald-faced lie that it almost just sounds like straight sarcasm. But Aaron hands it to him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have never eaten a turkey in my life, let alone cooked one, and the only Thanksgiving food I'm actually at all competent at making is pie.

  


November 2

  


Aaron gets home late, after Jefferson keeps him in a meeting that goes about twice as long as had been budgeted, leaving him with two hours’ worth of work and only an hour left to finish it. When the clock hits five he keeps at it, hoping he can finish in just another fifteen minutes, but at five-thirty he gives up and packs his files up to bring home, conscious of the need to relieve poor Martha. 

“Hi, Mr. Burr!” She’s sitting with Theo at the kitchen table when he arrives. Theo has a plate of triscuits and grapes, and a stack of cheese slices which she is carefully cutting with a butter knife into squares just the right size to fit on the crackers. “I know you guys’ll be having dinner soon, but she was getting too hungry to wait.” 

“It’s okay.” Aaron sets his briefcase on the table in the front hall. “Sorry to have kept you late.” 

“It’s no problem.” Aaron supposes it’s especially no problem when he pays her extra even on top of what he’d owe her for the additional hour. “Thanks!” she says. 

“Overtime,” he explains, and she laughs. Then she sobers. 

“Listen, Mr. Burr,” she says, “So—I auditioned for the winter play, and I hadn’t really expected to do well, but I found out today I actually got a main part.” 

“Congratulations!” says Aaron. “What’s the play?” 

“The Importance of Being Earnest. I’m going to be Cecily,” Martha tells him. “But—rehearsals start next week and they’re after school Monday-Wednesday-Friday until February, so—I’m not going to be able to watch Theo all the time. I’m really sorry, and I’m going to ask around to see if any of my friends have the time to babysit on the days I can’t—” 

“Oh.” Aaron is, to put it mildly, blindsided. “Okay. I’ll—I’ll look around too, I guess. Keep me updated?” 

“Of course. I’m really sorry to quit on you like this,” says Martha again. 

“It’s okay,” Aaron tells her, which is mostly true. He just hopes Theo doesn’t feel too abandoned, or they are going to have problems. “Extracurriculars are important in high school, I get that.” A bit more warning might have been nice, but he supposes she didn’t find out until today. She might have mentioned it was a possibility, though. 

The next day he asks after her progress. She winces and shrugs regretfully. 

“Everybody’s schedules are pretty tight. I’m sorry. I’ll keep looking.” 

“Thanks.” 

“Oh, and, um.” She makes a face. “Mr. Hamilton was out in his yard earlier, and he, uh, he asked if I’d remind you—it’s November third.” Aaron looks at her blankly for a moment. Then it clicks. He sighs. 

“Of course he did,” he says. “All right. Can you vote yet?” 

“I can.” Martha straightens up a little, looking pleased with herself. “I turned eighteen in September. I’m more excited to vote next year, though.” 

“Of course. Well, I’d better let you go so you can,” says Aaron. She leaves, and he turns to Theo. “Want to go with me to vote? I bet you’ll get a sticker too.” Theo jumps at the chance, putting back on her shoes and her purple Annie coat. She wore it yesterday, too, Aaron realizes, to his surprise—he wouldn’t have expected it to become a part of her regular wardrobe. Then again, kids are always changing. 

“Daddy,” says Theo as she straps herself into the back seat of his car, “are you only going to vote because Mr. Alex wants you to?” 

“No,” says Aaron, “I’m going to vote because it’s my civic duty.” 

“That’s the same thing Mr. Alex says,” Theo remarks. 

“It’s a pretty common turn of phrase, Theo,” Aaron tells her. 

“And Mr. Alex says it,” Theo replies immediately, sticking to her guns. Aaron ponders how to get her to stop. 

“A lot of people fought and died for our right to vote,” he says. “It’s very important.” 

“Then why haven’t you ever done it before?” Theo asks. Aaron should have seen that coming—he’s supposed to be a _lawyer._ A _good_ one. 

“I have, honey.” He sighs. “You just weren’t born yet.” 

“Why did you stop?” Fucking hell. 

“Voting may be very important, but other things took precedence,” he says. “Like taking care of you and your mom.” 

“Oh,” says Theo. 

“But now you’re big enough to come with me,” Aaron says. “So, let’s go.” He maneuvers the car into a space as close as possible to the front doors of the Congregationalist church. It’s raining again. 

“Hey!” says Theo, thankfully distracted as she gets out of the car. “It’s our church! I didn’t know voting happened at church.” 

“It does at some churches,” says Aaron. “It happens other places too. The church is just a large enough space to fit a lot of people at once.” 

“Oh, okay.” Theo holds his hand as they get in line. A volunteer hands him a very slim voter information pamphlet, and he peruses it—with only one issue and a city council race on the ballot, there’s not a lot the voters need informing on, though if it takes twelve whole pages to explain just those two small things Aaron shudders to think how thick the pamphlets will have to be next year. 

Reading over the details of the school funding measure, he finds himself nodding along with the arguments for—and then also with the arguments against. It’s not that he’s easily swayed, Aaron likes to think, more that he likes to give both sides their due weight before making a decision. Ultimately, though, when it comes down to it, standing in the voting booth, he votes in favor. Alex was right—he has a _huge_ stake in this issue. 

Theo is in the special play voting booth their precinct has set up for kids, which Aaron is sure would send Alex into conniptions of joy to know exists. He probably knows already, actually, now Aaron thinks about it—surely he votes in the same precinct, and he probably already came to the polls as soon as he possibly could. 

“I voted, Daddy!” Theo says excitedly when she emerges. 

“That’s great, sweetie,” says Aaron, taking her hand again to make sure she doesn’t get lost—there are a lot of people milling around here in the church antechamber. A different volunteer gives them I voted stickers, as promised. Theo sticks hers carefully onto the lapel of her coat and stands a little taller, wearing it with pride. 

They head home and eat a quiet dinner. The next day, Aaron asks Martha again whether she’s found any leads for him; again, nothing. Aaron is starting to get genuinely disheartened. It’s Wednesday, and next week is already feeling uncomfortably close. 

“I don’t suppose your younger daughter would like to take over for Martha watching Theo?” he asks Jefferson on Thursday. “She’s fifteen, right?” 

“Molly? Yeah,” says Jefferson. “Unfortunately, after-school tutoring season never ends. Her afternoons are booked solid. You having trouble finding a replacement?” 

“Some,” says Aaron. “Don’t worry, though—I’ll figure it out.” 

“I know you will.” Jefferson claps him on the shoulder and leaves him to his work, and to struggle to figure out what the fuck he’s going to do. 

The rain has stopped today, so he’s not surprised to arrive home and find Theo out in the yard with Seabury. It’s actually sunny—cold, but sunny—so he stays outside himself for a couple minutes once he’s unloaded his things and paid Martha, enjoying the light. His asshole neighbor, leaning against his fence watching over child and dog, waves. Aaron walks over. 

“Hey there,” says Alex. “Martha says you’ve run into a scheduling issue.” 

“A bit,” says Aaron. 

“I’m going to ask around with some of my less immature students for you,” Alex tells him. “I can’t make any promises for immediacy, though.” 

“Thanks,” says Aaron, genuinely grateful. Alex waves a hand as if to say, it’s no problem. 

“You know,” he says, “if you need some temporary help in the interim, I could watch Theo when Martha can’t.” 

“Really?” says Aaron, who hadn’t expected that at all and isn’t sure what he thinks of the idea. Alex shrugs. 

“Sure, to help out a friend,” he says. Aaron wasn’t aware he considered them friends. That seems to show on his face more than he’d intended, because Alex laughs and says, “Too far? Okay, let’s say a neighbor. But I get off work a bit before the elementary school gets out, so I could walk her home and she could play with Seabury while I grade homework. Just to help out, until you find a replacement of, you know, normal babysitting age. You wouldn’t have to pay me.” 

Aaron ponders that. It’s a generous offer, and it would take some weight off his shoulders, and nothing about it particularly says _bad idea._ His asshole neighbor isn’t his favorite person in the world, but he is a fairly responsible adult, he thinks, generally, for the most part, first impressions notwithstanding, and Theo likes him and his dog well enough. 

“I may just take you up on that,” he says. “I know you’re used to dealing with kids a lot older than her, though—Theo’s pretty easy-going for the most part, but eight-year-olds can be a handful.” 

“I don’t know,” says Alex, “I may teach kids twice her age, but sometimes I get the impression Theo’s actually older than a lot of them are.” That’s a fair point, Aaron thinks, having been a teenager himself once. “Besides,” Alex adds, “I do like kids, actually. I used to be really into the idea of having kids someday.” 

“Okay,” Aaron finds himself saying. “We can try it. I’m sure it’ll be fine with Theo, she loves Seabury.” 

“And he loves her,” says Alex. “Look at them.” They watch as Seabury gently drops the ball at Theo’s feet and sits, gazing up at her adoringly as he waits for it to be tossed again. 

“I’ll let the school know you’re allowed to pick her up,” says Aaron. “You shouldn’t have any problems.” 

“Do you want us hanging out at your house, or mine?” Alex asks. 

“Ours,” Aaron says. “Ours, I think. That would be better. I’ll give you a spare key.” Alex probably should have a spare key anyway, he thinks, a little grudgingly—it’s good practice to keep a key at a neighbor’s house in case of emergency. Aaron just hasn’t made that happen yet, since he doesn’t know any of his other neighbors that well, and Alex is, well, Alex. But if he’s going to trust Alex with his kid, who is much more important than his house, he should get around to that. 

Theo is sad about Martha not taking care of her every afternoon anymore for all of the four or so seconds it takes for Aaron to tell her what the new (albeit temporary) plan is. 

“As long as you’re okay with that,” he tells her. “You have the last word.” Admittedly, if she says no, he’s fucked, but it’s not really that much of a long shot considering he’s pretty sure she’ll say exactly what she says— 

“Yes, Daddy, of _course_ it’s okay with me!” She bounces a little in her seat at the kitchen table where they’re eating spaghetti. “Of course I want Seabury to be my babysitter! And Mr. Alex.” Aaron laughs. 

“All right,” he says. “Then that’s what we’ll do.” 

So, Aaron stops in at Theo’s school on Friday morning to let Mr. Hale know he’s adding a person to the list of people Theo is allowed to leave campus with—right now it consists of Aaron, Martha, and Sally. Although his sister lives in Connecticut, she’s Theo’s emergency contact, and at her insistence, too, though it’s not like Aaron took much convincing—he’s already infinitely in her debt, but he knows she would still jump in her car at the drop of a hat to come help out if they needed it. 

He wouldn’t ask her to come out for this, though he’ll admit he considered it for about half a second when Martha first told him she wouldn’t be available anymore. But that would be too much. And besides, now Hamilton, somehow, has stepped in to fix it. Temporarily, of course, but for the moment, Aaron is content. 

“So, that’s the house,” he says to Alex on Sunday, once he’s briefly shown him around the ground floor. It’s strange how bizarre it is to have Alexander Hamilton in his house. Especially considering he’s about to become a fixture. _A temporary fixture,_ Aaron amends, in part because it would be even more bizarre if it weren’t temporary. “She’s free to read whatever books she wants, but homework comes first. She’s only in third grade, Mr. Hale doesn’t assign a lot—” 

“Oh, she’s in Nathan’s class?” says Alex, smirking slightly. Aaron pauses. 

“Yes. Why?” 

“Oh, nothing.” 

“What?” says Aaron, who wouldn’t normally pry, but he figures it’s not unreasonable that Alex might know things about the other teachers in the district. He likes Nathan Hale well enough—they’re about the same age, which struck Aaron as a little young to be a teacher until he remembered he himself is pretty young to have an eight-year-old, and he seems very smart and perfectly capable—but if it’s something bad— 

“Well—I know all the teacher gossip,” Alex informs him, confirming that theory. “And people think _I’m_ sleeping with a colleague.” So he does know about the Pickering rumor—and it’s definitely false. Not that Aaron cares about _that_ piece. 

“…Okay,” he says, as he doesn’t particularly care what Nathan Hale or anyone else does with other consenting adults outside their workplace. “Anyway, when there is homework, that’s priority one. Once it’s done, she’s free to read, play with Seabury, or whatever else she wants to do, as long as it’s not something you have to supervise too closely. I wouldn’t want to impose.” 

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” says Alex. They start toward the front door. “So! I’ll let my students know office hours are canceled Monday-Wednesday-Friday until further notice, and I’ll head over to Locke Elementary tomorrow at three.” Aaron has never heard of a high school teacher holding office hours—that was always very much a college thing, at least when he was in school—but it’s also not that surprising that out of all the high school teachers in the world, Alexander Hamilton, who never gives the same test twice, would be the one to do it. “I’ll get Theo, say hi to Nathan, maybe look in on the fifth graders and make Ben mildly uncomfortable—” 

“Maybe skip that part,” says Aaron, who has no idea who Ben is but would rather not Alex make anyone uncomfortable. Though that is, to some degree, in Aaron’s experience, his basic nature as a person. 

“Yeah, okay.” Alex’s grin suggests he’s just messing with him, anyway. “I’ll get Theo, we’ll walk home, homework first, then whatever. Do I have it down?” 

“To the letter,” Aaron says. “And I generally get home around ten after five. Here’s the spare key. Please don’t lose it.” 

“Oh, don’t worry, I never lose things.” That’s so clearly a bald-faced lie that it almost just sounds like straight sarcasm. But Aaron hands it to him anyway. 

“On the off chance you do,” he adds in an undertone, “there’s an extra one in that plant.” He points to a pot that, in spring, he _thinks_ will hold marigolds. 

“As any garden-variety burglar could have guessed,” Alex remarks. _Was that a fucking plant pun?_ “I keep mine in a much more secure location,” he adds, “I figure no one’s first guess would be to look around back, so it’s—uh—somewhere…” he trails off, brow furrowing in evident concern. Aaron is actually inclined to laugh, but doesn’t. 

“Right. Well, if and _when_ you lose the key, there’s your backup.” 

“All right. Thanks.” Alex finally takes the key from his hand and pockets it. His fingers brushing Aaron’s palm make Aaron very aware of how close they’re standing, horrifyingly so, and they’re not even standing _that_ close, either, until—“See you tomorrow, Burr, sir,” says Alex with his usual vaguely mocking grin, and thank god, whatever _that_ was is gone, replaced by the usual mild annoyance that’s always at least an undercurrent when Aaron is in his presence. 

Then Alex leaves, and he shakes it all off. He has a house to tidy, and dinner to make, and a child to take care of, and tomorrow to worry about. 

Tomorrow, as it turns out, goes off without a hitch, and therein exceeds all of Aaron’s expectations. Actually, the whole week goes perfectly smoothly. Martha is there Tuesday and Thursday, and when she’s not, Alex is irritating as ever to Aaron but sweet to Theo, and Theo is wholly content with the new status quo, so Aaron is, too. 

Despite the change to the routine, which Aaron might have thought would slow things down for a bit, November flies by. Theo comes home from school with a turkey made of a hand tracing, and Aaron comes home to find Alex has added the word _genocide_ to her vocabulary. She spends an evening quite cheerfully telling Aaron all about how Thanksgiving is made-up and the Pilgrims actually killed the Indians, and it’s wrong to pretend otherwise because what they did was really bad. 

“But Daddy,” she says worriedly once she’s exhausted all her new information, “we can still have turkey anyway, right?” 

“Of course we can, sweetie,” Aaron tells her. “For us, Thanksgiving is about family.” 

“And the parade,” Theo adds. Aaron chuckles. 

“And the parade.” 

Aaron jolts awake at five-thirty in the morning on Thanksgiving Day with the sudden realization that he has no fucking idea how he’s going to make Thanksgiving happen the way Theo is used to. There just aren’t enough hours in the day, or enough adult hands available now—it always took him and Theodosia working in concert, dividing and conquering, for the big meal to come together. Turkey was her thing, mashed potatoes were his; he did the gravy, she did the pie. He and Theo got all the groceries and supplies last night, so all the pieces are there, but having to assemble it all is daunting, to say the least. 

By the time Theo bounces down the stairs at nine to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Aaron has managed to get gravy and cranberry sauce both simmering on the stove at once, and is working on figuring out where the hell to start with the very intimidating turkey he purchased without considering he might want to go with something a little smaller his first time trying to do this on his own. 

Something is burning. It’s the gravy. Aaron curses aloud, thankful that the television sounds like it’s on loud enough that Theo won’t hear him. While he’s getting what of the stuff still looks edible into a bowl, he glances out the window over the sink and catches sight of his asshole neighbor, out throwing a ball for his dog, because what else does the man ever do with his free time? 

Aaron pauses over the salvaged gravy, frowning. Does Hamilton not have somewhere to be today? Does he not have a family to go to? Aaron knows he lost his mother young, but he never said anything about his father—or siblings, like Aaron has. Indeed, the dog seems to be the only permanent fixture in Hamilton’s life at all. 

Not that it’s Aaron’s concern. He has gravy to re-make and a turkey to grapple with. 

Thank God, all the food gets made in time for dinner, and thank God it comes out just fine after all the effort expended to make it. And after all that effort _god_ is it delicious, though Aaron is too exhausted to do anything but eat quietly. To his surprise, rather than keeping the usual companionable silence with him, Theo is talkative, recapping the entire parade for him since he didn’t get to watch it. 

“Why didn’t we ever go to see the parade when we _lived_ in the city, Daddy?” she asks. “Can we go next year? It’s still not that far away, right?” 

“We could,” says Aaron, “but then who would cook the food?” Theo frowns. 

“Oh, right,” she says. “Is that why we’ve never been?” 

“Mm-hmm.” Aaron swallows his mouthful of mashed potatoes. “Maybe next year we’ll see if we can’t get Aunt Sally to invite us out to Connecticut for Thanksgiving. Then we could drive into the city and see the parade, and it won’t matter that I’m not home to cook.” 

“Maybe.” Theo seems ambivalent. “Going to Aunt Sally’s might be weird.” 

“It might,” says Aaron. 

“I like _our_ Thanksgiving.” 

“So do I.” Now, at least, they’re both quiet for a minute or two. Theo scrapes her fork around the edge of her plate, making sure the china is entirely clean of mashed potatoes. “Would you like seconds?” Aaron asks her, at the same time she says, 

“I miss Mommy.” 

“I miss your mom too,” says Aaron after a slight pause. “Thanksgiving doesn’t really feel the same without her, does it?” Theo shakes her head. 

“Christmas isn’t gonna be the same this year either,” she says in a small voice. 

“No,” says Aaron honestly. “But that means it can be whatever we want it to be. We can start new family traditions, just us.” Theo ponders that, and nods. 

“I guess so.” She doesn’t sound happy about the prospect. Aaron can understand. He takes a moment to ponder himself before he decides what to say next. 

“You know,” he says, “it’s okay to be sad right now. And at Christmas. When you’ve lost someone you loved a lot, it’s actually normal to feel extra sad around the holidays.” 

“It is?” says Theo, looking surprised. “But you’re supposed to be happy at Christmas, cause it’s Christmas.” 

“That’s exactly why, actually,” Aaron tells her. “Because the holidays are usually a happy time to spend with the people we love, a lot of our happiest memories with those people are made around them. I know a lot of my favorite memories of your mom—and you—are from Christmastime.” Theo nods. “And we had a lot of traditions as a family that we won’t be able to do this year, because she isn’t with us. So I’m probably going to feel extra sad at Christmas this year, and it’s all right for you to feel sad too. There’s nothing wrong with you if you do.” 

“Okay,” says Theo. “Can I have more mashed potatoes, please?” 

“Of course you may.” Aaron spoons a pile slightly smaller than the first onto her plate. She narrows her eyes. 

“That’s not as much as I got the first time.” She’s too observant for his own good. 

“How about you eat that, and then if you’re still hungry you can have more? Remember, you’ve got to save room for pie.” 

“O _kay_.” Theo pouts, but digs in without further complaint. 

“We’ll make new traditions this year, okay?” says Aaron. “You know, even though we’re sad, we’ve still got a lot to be thankful for. We’ve got this nice warm house, your new school is pretty great, and—” 

“Seabury,” says Theo through mashed potatoes. Startled, Aaron laughs. 

“Seabury’s what you’re thankful for?” he says. 

“Yes,” says Theo, nodding seriously. “We’re thankful for Seabury, right?” Oh, apparently it’s a _we_ thing. 

“I guess we are,” says Aaron. 

“And Mr. Alex.” 

“And Alex,” Aaron admits, grudgingly. His asshole neighbor does keep life interesting, at least, and he has been surprisingly helpful lately. He supposes he is grateful for that much. 

“I’m thankful for dinner,” says Theo, finishing off the last of her mashed potatoes. “Is it time for pie now? I saved room!” 

“Of course,” says Aaron, “but I made it, not your mom, so I can’t guarantee it’s going to be as good as the way she made it.” 

“That’s okay,” says Theo. “Pie is still pie.” 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway I know the chapter description MAY have been a little misleading for what the circumstances actually are but... well, that was kind of the point :) So, I am back, and this is in fact continuing, albeit at a glacial pace. This chapter felt a little bit scattered as I wrote it, probably because I wound up combining what would have been two chapters from the outline into a single chapter to keep a steady pace in chapter word count. (The next chapter should be when things start to get... interesting, I think.) Anyway, I hope it came out more narratively coherent than I feel like it did.
> 
>   
>  If you, like Aaron, are confused about who a coworker of Nathan Hale's named Ben might be, you should definitely read up on the Culper spy ring (that's what the musical references when Hercules Mulligan says he "smuggles [the information] to [his] brother's revolutionary covenant") because they were super interesting. (Or just watch AMC's Turn: Washington's Spies because while riddled with historical inaccuracies it is an entertaining take on the Culpers; the first two seasons, at least, are great and the cast is pretty fantastic. Hammy and Lafayette actually show up in Turn, though unfortunately it's only after Season 3 starts going off the rails a lil bit (or a lot bit. I'm not bitter). Anyway the influence of Turn seeping into my Hamilton fic was inevitable I guess so now here we are. I almost went for it and named the elementary school Culper Elementary but that seemed too obvious.
> 
>   
>  Thomas Jefferson's younger daughter was named Mary and was called Polly or Maria at various times in her life, but I went with Molly here because that's both another nickname for Mary and an actual name teenagers have in the 21st century.


End file.
